TLoS: Judgement
by XxNexusWolfxX
Summary: Spyro must now face fate itself. He and his friends have to deal with beings that have control over the destinies of creatures. Can Spyro overcome these adversaries or will he fail, and lose everything he holds dear? This is the sequel to The Legend of Spyro: Brotherhood.
1. Return

**(A/N):Even though I said that I would not post this story until at least after a month. I did it anyways because it seems that I need to address some issues. Those issues will be addressed towards the bottom at the end of this chapter.**

**Copyright: I do not own Spyro or anything Spyro related. It is all owned by Sierra Entertainment and Activision. I do own my original characters in the story.**

**This is the sequel to The Legend of Spyro: Brotherhood. If you have not read this story it is highly recommended that you do so.  
**

* * *

_2 years later…_

Two figures flew across the sky. One was a large light blue scaled elder dragon. The other was a purple scaled dragon that was about one third the size of the larger one. The dragon's body type was a bit more muscular then someone within his own age group. He had amethyst eyes and a pair of yellow wings. He had a yellow underbelly, chest, and the tip of his tail was also yellow. The spikes on his head had grown larger over the years in order to accommodate his larger body. They still traveled from the tip of his head to the tip of tail, decreasing in size along the way.

"Do you think that they will be happy to see me again?" A purple figure asked.

"I'm sure that they will young dragon. What would make you think that they would not?" A larger blue figure asked.

"I told them that I would be gone for a long time, but I never thought that it would take this long."

"They will forgive you. Once they see you again none of that will matter. The only thing important to them will be that you have once again entered their lives." He said, comforting the young dragon.

The two dragons were approaching Warfang. The two took in the scenery of the city. The city had had several things added to it during the years that the two dragons had been away. Several buildings had been created in order to accommodate its rising population. The Dragon Temple had also increased in size. This was due to the fact that it needed to accommodate for the new students. There was also a newly build magical dome over the city. The two dragons guessed that it had been built in order to prevent any unwelcomed guests from entering. The two dragons flew down towards the ground, landing at the entrance to the city. Two moles covered in armor watched as the dragons approach them. The two did not know who the large dragon was, but after some time they recognized the smaller one.

The two went to opposite directions, and began pulling on a chain. The gate began to open slowly, revealing the city to the two dragons. The two dragons entered the city, and immediately saw that it was much more energetic then it had been before. Since there was no longer any danger in the world, the citizens were always in a cheerful mood. The two dragons also noticed that there was a much larger population of dragons. The larger one saw that the population was equal to its original size. All the dragons that had been in hiding from Malefor had returned.

"Where should we go first?" The younger one asked.

"It would probably be wise to stop by the Dragon Temple first." The elder dragon responded.

The two dragons made their way towards the temple, avoiding the crowds in the streets. They entered the temple, and the first thing that they saw were several young dragons walking through the temple. The two guessed that they were all students who had enlisted in order to be taught by the Guardians. The two were about to make their way up to the Guardians' main room when they heard something.

"Spyro!"

The purple dragon heard his name being called from within the room. He searched around for the dragon that had called out his name. His eyes came in contact with two dragons that were running towards him. One of the dragons was a bit smaller than him; he had red orange scales and a pair of yellow horns growing out of the sides of his head. He had a pair of yellow wings. The dragoness next to him was a bit smaller than her companion. Her body was larger than that of a normal dragoness, but she still retained defining curves. She had horns that had grown larger since the last time he had seen her, and a pair of wings that complemented her body.

"Flame! Ember!" Spyro called out as the two dragons hugged him.

"Welcome back Spyro." Ember said, embracing the dragon.

"We've missed you buddy." Flame said.

"I've missed you guys so much as well." He said, hugging his friends back. The dragon looked over towards Ignitus, and saw that he quietly stepped to the side. Spyro slowly pulled away from the two dragons in order to introduce them to him.

"Guys, I would like you to meet Ignitus. I was with him during all these years, and he was also the one who taught me everything about being a dragon. Out of everyone hear I have known him the longest. And Ignitus these two are Flame and Ember, two of my closest friends."

"Nice to meet you sir." The two said in unison.

"The pleasure is all mine." He said, "I have been waiting to meet Spyro's friends. He talked about all of you so much during our time together. Spyro, why not spend some time with them? I will go meet up with the Guardians myself, and we will call you when the need arises."

The purple dragon nodded, and separated himself from Ignitus so that he could spend some time with Flame and Ember. The two dragons flew out of the temple in order to have more space. They landed on the outside of the temple and began to converse.

"So what have you two been up to since I've been gone?" Spyro asked.

"Nothing much," Flame said, trying to avoid the subject.

"Then why are you acting so nervous?" He said, raising an eye brow.

"Isn't it obvious Spyro?" Ember asked.

"Um, no," he replied.

"Alright, then let us show you." She said, pulling Flame in for a kiss, making the fire dragon blush. Spyro stared at them in awe, he knew that Flame had feelings for Ember, but he had not known until now that the two were a couple.

"Not in front of Spyro." Flame said, pulling away from Ember.

"So you two are a couple now." He said, smiling at them. "I'm happy for you two."

"Thanks, Flame and I grew really close during the time that you were gone. I had grown to really admire him. One day he asked me out, and I just couldn't refuse. We've been together ever since." She said.

"Spyro! You're finally back."

The three dragons looked up to the sky, searching for the owner of the voice that they had just heard. They saw a light red scaled dragoness flying towards them. Spyro saw that she was the same size as him, and had a slender body. She had three horns, two coming out from the side of the top of her head, and the other slightly behind them at the center of her head. The three horns curved towards the back of her head. The tip of her tail was in the shape of a flame, it had a darker red than her scales. She landed next to them.

"Long time no see Spyro." She said, welcoming the dragon back.

"It's nice to see you again Blair." He responded.

"I see that you've found the two love birds." She said, teasing Flame and Ember. "Well at least this two aren't that bad. They're not nearly as physical as the other two."

"Other two?" Spyro asked.

"Don't worry about it. So how have you been Spyro?" She said, trying to change the subject.

"I've been well, but I would like to know how you have been doing." He said.

"I've been doing well; Blaze and I have taken over your duties in teaching dragons that were born with the fire element."

"Where is Blaze, I want to say hi to him."

"He's not here at the moment. The Guardians have sent him out to accomplish a task." She said.

"Alright then can you tell me where Cynder is?" He asked.

"Yea," she said, sounding a bit sad. "She is usually over by the training field."

"Thanks, I'll see you guys later." He said, flying into the air.

"I sure hope that he won't be hurt that bad." Blair said.

"Let's just hope that he manages to take the news. If he can't take it then we will be there to cheer him up." Ember said.

Spyro flew over towards the training field, landing on the hard dirt floor. He scanned the area for any signs of Cynder. It took him some time, but he finally found her. She was all the way at the end of the field. He quietly made his way over towards her, attempting to surprise her. As he got closer he could see her in better view. She was about the same size as him, and still had her slender body. She still had her dark violet scales, and magenta underbelly. The horns on her head still curved backwards to the back of her head. They had gotten a bit larger since the last time that he saw her. The largest difference about her was that she no longer wore the pieces of silver on her body. She had removed the necklace and four bracelets that she had on several years ago. This time he would tell her immediately how he felt about her. He would no longer hide it from her.

"Cynder," he called out to her.

"Spyro? Is that you?" She said, approaching the purple dragon.

"Yes," he said.

"I've missed you so much." She said, hugging the dragon.

"I have too, I thought about you every day." He said, pulling away from the hug. "Now that I have come back, I can finally tell you what you've wanted to hear. Cynder I love you."

He looked at Cynder and waited for her to say the same thing, but instead she began stepping away from him. She had a saddened expression on her face. "I know what you're expecting me to say, but I'm sorry Spyro I can't return your feelings."

* * *

**(A/N): Alright now the issue that I have to address has to do with the plot of the story. Some of you believe that I am completely copying the plot from the anime Naruto. I would like you to know that while the show has indeed influenced some attributes of the story. I did not blatantly copy every single aspect of it. In case some of you did not know Naruto was also influenced by some anime and manga that came before it. Please I urge you to private message me if you think that I am completely copying it. I will let you state your points and then I will state mine. Do not leave it in a review, message me about it.  That is all I have to say, I hope that you enjoyed the chapter.**


	2. Seth

**Copyright: I do not own Spyro or anything Spyro related. It is all owned by Sierra Entertainment and Activision. I do own my original characters in the story.  
**

* * *

"What? Why not, Cynder?"

"It's because…"

She was caught off by a dragon that landed next to her. He had light green scales and a light blue underbelly. Spyro saw that the dragon was about the same age as him. His body type was the same as Spyro, except that he was a bit less muscular. Spyro saw that the dragon was built for speed, and not for strength like himself. He had three horns that curved towards the back of his head much like Cynder's. The outer edges of his wings were light green, while the membrane was light blue. The tip of his tail was in the shape of a sharp axe. He stepped over towards Cynder and kissed her on the lips, breaking Spyro's heart in the process.

"Um, Spyro this is Seth. Seth this is Spyro my friend that I've told you about." She said.

"Hello Spyro, I've heard a lot about you from Cynder." He said, smiling at him.

"Um… hello Seth it's nice to meet you." He said, trying to hide his sadness.

"Could you give us a moment Seth, I'll be with you in a moment." She said, kissing the dragon on the lips.

"Sure," he said, opening his wings. "I guess I'll see you later Spyro. It was really nice meeting you." He said, taking off.

"I see that you've found someone." Spyro said, avoiding eye contact with Cynder.

"Yes," she said.

"So you couldn't wait for me? I told you Cynder that when I got back we could finally start our lives together. We would leave this place, and it was just going to be me and you. Why did you move on?"

"Because I lost hope Spyro!" She screamed out. "I waited and waited and waited for you. My life was slipping before me just because of some dragon that never expressed to me how he felt. I knew that you loved me, but I needed more I wanted you to tell me that. I was depressed for a whole year. I didn't know how much longer I could go on, that is until the Guardian's gave me a certain wind dragon to train. That dragon was Seth, we spend so much time together. I would teach him about wind while he would keep me company. When I had finished teaching him everything that I knew, I thought that he would stop hanging out with be, but to my surprise he never stopped. Eventually I told him what I had done under Malefor's control. And you know what he told me Spyro." She said, with tears rolling down her eyes.

"No," he said, fighting back tears.

She cleared the tears from her eyes. "He told me that he knew all of that already. He didn't care what I had done. He just wanted to spend time with me. After that he told me that he loved me, and I told him that I loved him back. Now you see Spyro that at the moment there is no way that we can be together."

"I see," he said, dropping his head in disappointment. "I'm happy for you Cynder. Even though I wish that it was me. At least one of us got what they wanted."

"Hey Spyro and Cynder," Flame said from above. "The Guardians want to see us." He said, flying off towards the Guardians' room.

"Let's go Cynder," Spyro said, opening his wings to take flight, but stopped when he saw that Cynder was not doing the same. "What is it?"

"You go on ahead Spyro. I'll catch up to you."

Spyro did as she told him; he guessed that at the moment she wanted to be apart from him. Even though it hurt him to see her with another dragon he still wanted to be her friend. He hoped that she could at least give him her friendship. Spyro made his way into the temple, and up towards the Guardians' room. Upon entering their room he saw that Flame, Ember, and Blair had already arrived. He also saw that Ignitus, Terrador, Cyril, and Volteer were standing in front of a vision pool.

"Welcome back Spyro," Terrador said.

"It sure is nice seeing you again after all this time." Cyril added.

"I bet that you were surprised to find out that the dragon who was going to train you was Ignitus." Volteer said.

"It's nice seeing all of you again, and yea it was."

"Alright now that Spyro is here we just need those two to arrive." Terrador said.

Spyro made his way over towards Flame and sat down next to him. He wondered who the last two dragons that they were waiting for could be. As if on cue Cynder and Seth entered the room. The two took a seat next to Blair. Cynder looked at the elder dragon in front of her. At first she did not recognize him, but after a while she realized that it was Ignitus.

"Ignitus, you're alive!" She shouted out.

"Yes, Cynder I am. I became chronicler after Malefor had been dealt with." Ignitus responded.

"I guess now would be a good enough time as any to get started." Terrador said, stepping forth. "This dragon next to me used to be the former fire guardian. He has since become the Chronicler. As of this moment you will no longer take orders from me, but from him."

"There is no need to put it like that Terrador. You make it sound like we are part of an army. Hello young dragons, I am Ignitus." He said, presenting himself to them. "I would like all of you to tell me your names so that we can get to know each other better. Spyro and Cynder since I already know you two there is no need for you two to tell me your names."

"Flame,"

"Ember,"

"Blair,"

"Seth,"

"It's nice meeting all of you." He said, smiling at them. "Now I am sure all of you want to know why you have been called. As you can see currently there are three guardians, and even though I used to be one I am not going to be one again. We cannot have students teaching each other about fire. Even though they may be quiet adept at the element they lack the most important thing. Experience, experience is something that none of the students have. This is why I am giving the six of you the task of bringing to me this dragon." He said, pointing at the pool.

The six young dragons stared into the pool. It began to form the image of an orange scaled dragon.

"Who is he?" Spyro asked.

"He is the dragon, whom we believe fits the position of fire guardian the best out of all the current fire dragons." Terrador Replied. "His name is, Coal."

"We have already made contact with this dragon, and he has agreed to accept the position of Guardian. But in order for him to do so we must escort him out of his current location. You see he currently resides in the fire dragon city, located south from here. As you know no city is without its fair share of problems. It appears that there are dragons in this city who believe that they should have been the new fire guardian. Because of this they have made attempts at his life. Even though Coal is a skillful fighter we believe that it is best that we send the seven of you to help him get there. The seven of you will go to the city, meet up with Coal, and then escort him here."

"What will our potential enemies be like?" Flame questioned.

"From the information that our spy has sent us it appears that there are only four real threats. The problem is that they are not working together. This makes it difficult because they can all decide to attack at once, or wait until an opportunity arises." Terrador said.

"Now the reason that we are sending the six of you is because this has the potential to turn into a difficult mission. We have been told that there are four dragons after Cole, but not how strong they are. We believe that since they are aiming at his life that they must be highly skilled. The six of you are currently ranked as masters. These dragons might be ranked on the same level as the six of you. But there is one thing that you can take comfort in, and that is that we believe that none of them are. This is because they failed the test that our spy set up for each of them." Cyril said.

"Wait you said that the six of us are masters?" Spyro asked.

"Yes, that is correct." Cyril replied.

"How is Seth a master? From what I heard from Cynder, he finished his training less than a year ago. I don't believe that it would be enough time for him to develop his skills to that level."

"I can explain that." Seth said, standing up. "I went through the same facing your fears test that all of you went through, and it seems that I finished at the so called perfect time. Not too early, but not too late. After that I began my training to become a master. I actually became one about a month ago."

"On top of that he has helped all of us out a lot." Cynder added.

"Yes, I agree," Volteer said. "Most of the stuff that you used to take care of Spyro, Seth is now doing. He has done a fantastic job with your tasks Spyro."

"Alright then I guess that he does have the qualities of a master." Spyro said, wanting to rid himself of the negative emotions that he held towards the wind dragon.

"Alright now I will explain each of your tasks. Spyro will be the leader since out of the six of you; he is the one with the most experience in these things. Ember from what I have heard you have the ability to heal dragons. You will be the medic, and because of this you above everybody else must be cautious. Seth your responsibility will be to get rid of the obstacles that the team might encounter. By this I mean defeating enemies that you might deem to powerful for the others to defeat. The rest of you will do whatever Spyro tells you to do. Now before you head out, I must tell you that at some point our spy will join you in bringing Coal here. May the Ancestors be with all of you."

The six dragons flew out of the temple, and flew towards the south.

* * *

**(A/N): It has been over a month since I last updated. I took the time off to map out the story for myself, until I reached a point where I had an idea of where the plot was going. I will once again try to update weekly every Friday. **


	3. The Fire Dragon City

**Copyright: I do not own Spyro or anything Spyro related. It is all owned by Sierra Entertainment and Activision. I do own my original characters in the story.  
**

* * *

"It seems that Ignitus has reacquainted himself with his old allies."

"So it seems."

"He has sent six of his best dragons to escort a dragon to Warfang. Supposedly he will be the new fire guardian. If that city acquires this dragon we might have a problem on our paws. Eliminating individual dragons is no problem, but going up against all four of the Guardians and the Chronicler could pose a problem."

"It might not, since they are no longer in their prime. Plus once our final member rejoins our group's power will return to its full strength. Or must I remind you that we are greater than the fiercest enemy this generation has ever witnessed. We have authority over death itself." The figure said, smiling.

"Must I remind you that we are not the highest of authority? There is still another group above us. I was simply reminding you not to get ahead of yourself."

"Alright then have it your way, but in the end we all answer to the same being." He said, turning to one of the dragons in the room. "Judge Syx, I hope that you are ready to reacquaint yourself with the purple dragon."

"Hopefully it won't involve turning into an old female cheetah again." He said, approaching the dragon.

"No, I want you to test Spyro's abilities. Go easy on him; I do not want him getting suspicious of us."

* * *

The six dragons were flying through the sky. Spyro kept on staring over towards Cynder and Seth. The two were inseparable they had been flirting with each other since they had started flying. He tried getting his mind off of them by coming up with a plan for the mission, but it was no use. His attention would always come back to them.

"Don't worry about it Spyro." Flame said, trying to cheer his friend up.

"Yea, even if you couldn't get Cynder there are plenty of other girls out there." Ember said.

"At least she is still your friend." Blair said.

"I don't want anybody else I want her, and I want to be more than a friend to her." He said.

"Don't worry Spyro, you're a strong dragon. You will get over this." Blair said.

"I sure hope so."

"Hey, Spyro!" Seth called out. "If you want me to I can fly on ahead, and get to the city before all of you in order to check if there is any unusual activity."

"How fast are you?" Spyro questioned.

"Pretty fast I would say even faster than an electric type dragon.

"There is no way that you are faster than an electric type dragon." Spyro said, getting annoyed by his boastfulness.

"Yea, he is," Cynder said, backing up her boyfriend. "He is the fastest dragon that I have ever seen."

Spyro stopped in mid-air. "Wait what type of sky element do you have?"

"What do you mean by what type?" Seth asked.

Spyro looked around and saw that everyone had the same confused looks. "I guess only I was taught about them." He said, continuing to fly forward. "Alright I guess that I will explain it to you guys. Each element type has three versions each is more powerful than the last. Most dragons are born with the first version, which is called the original form. Few dragons are born with the second version, which is called the advanced form. It is believed that there can only be eight dragons alive with the third version, which is called the final form. Only eight can exist, because there are only eight elements, one for each. Although there have been cases of third version elemental users having children that carry the element dormant within them. It awakens once their parent dies."

"Do you know what all the versions are?" Flame asked.

"I know all of the original ones, and almost all of you here know the final version for the electric element."

"I don't, can you guys tell me?" Seth asked.

Spyro remained silent. He did not want to remember, but if he kept on talking about this stuff it would eventually cause him to remember. "Seth, don't fly ahead. We should stick together as a group. We are stronger together, as a group."

The dragons flew during the day, and slept at night. Even though they flew faster than they did a couple of years ago, it still took them three full days to reach the fire city. Upon reaching the city the trio discovered that it was built around an active volcano. The group made their way inside the city. They discovered that most of the buildings looked exactly like the ones in Warfang. The only difference being that the entire city was embedded around the volcano.

"Ignitus mentioned that every city has its own dragon temple where the leader of the city resides in. In this case it would be the Fire Dragon Temple. We should head there first, and ask the dragon in charge if they know Cole's whereabouts." Spyro said, walking through the city.

"Where exactly would this temple be located?" Seth asked.

"You know I actually don't know?" Spyro responded. "Usually the temple would be located at the center of the city, but the entire city goes around the volcano."

"Why don't we just ask somebody from around here?" Flame commented.

"Great idea Flame," Ember said, turning around to a random dragon. "Hello mister can you tell us where the city's Fire Dragon Temple is located?"

"So I guess that you guys aren't from around here." He said, looking at the group. "Our temple is located up there." He said, pointing to the top of the volcano.

"It's at the top of the volcano?"

"Yes, only our most skilled fire dragons train in that temple, and our leader watches over the city from up there."

"Thank you sir," Spyro said, opening his wings. "Alright guys let's get going."

The six dragons once again flew into the sky. They made it up to the volcano, and were surprised to find multiple islands floating on top of the volcano's lava. At the center of the lava filled crater was a large island. The group saw that on the island was the Fire Dragon Temple. They flew down towards the island, landing in front of the temple. They made their way inside of the temple.

"Stop, who goes there?"

The group looked in front of them, and saw that the voice belonged to the dragon staring at them. To them he looked like he was about the same age as them. The dragon was a bit taller than Spyro. He had red-orange scales, and a bright yellow underbelly and chest. The outside of his wings were red while the membrane was light orange. His horns were a bright yellow as well; the two were parallel to his head. The tip of his tail was blunt with a bright yellow color.

"We are from Warfang," Spyro said, stepping forth. "We were sent by the Guardians to escort Cole to Warfang. We came here to ask the city's leader if he knew Cole's whereabouts."

"Judging from the color of your scales you must be Spyro the legendary purple dragon." He said, looking at the dragon. "Alright then follow me."

The dragon let the group past the main hallway. The group looked around, and saw that unlike their temple this one had multiple teachers. They were all fire dragons that were experts at the element. The dragon led them past all the classrooms and up the staircase. The staircase led to the very top of the temple, ending in front of a door. The dragon knocked twice on the door.

"Come in," a deep voice said from inside.

"It seems you have some guests, teacher." The dragon said, stepping towards his teacher's side. "This dragons claim to be from Warfang."

The trio looked at the dragon in front of them. He was the same size as the Guardians, but not as old. He was still technically an elder dragon though. The dragons began to realize that the dragon in front of them looked exactly like the dragon that the Guardians had showed them.

"So you must be here to escort me to Warfang." He said.

"Wait so does this mean that you are Cole?" Seth asked.

"Yes young dragon I am, and the dragon that let you in is Magmus he is my student."

"Wait, but you are the city's leader how can you just abandoned its citizens?" Spyro asked.

"I am not going to do that. I am sure that you are already aware that certain dragons have made an attempt on my life." He said, receiving nods from the six dragons. "At first I believed that it was because they wanted to become the new fire guardian, but then it became clear that it was for something else. You see I have yet to select my successor, and if I have not selected one then the city appoints the new leader. But these dragons believe that they can take the title of leader by killing me."

"So why don't you select one?" Flame asked.

"I do have one in mind, but I feel that he is not yet ready for the burden that comes with it."

"Hey what's that," Ember said, pointing at an object hurtling towards them.

The dragons looked up towards the temples windowed ceiling, and saw that a medium sized fire ball was approaching them. It broke through the window, making its way down towards them. Blair flew up into the air and spun around. She used the sharp part of her tail to cut the fire ball in half it vanished instantly. She landed back towards the ground.

"How'd you learn to do that?" Spyro asked.

"You would be amazed to learn how much a dragon can learn in two years." She responded.

"I have an idea." He said.

"Where did that attack come from?" Ember asked.

"It was probably one of the dragons who want to kill me." Cole said, opening his wings. "Follow me." He flew up through the broken window.

The dragons followed him, getting out of the temple and into the sky. They saw a single dragon flying up in the air in front of them. To the group it appeared to be a fire dragon.

"Took you long enough to come out Cole, and I see that you brought some friends." He said, smiling at them. "If they get in the way I will not hesitate to kill them."

"Trust me, considering your cockiness you won't be a challenge to us." Cynder said, angering the fire dragon.

"You actually have the nerve to say something like that to me." He said.

"Don't antagonize him Cynder." Spyro said.

"If you won't fight me Cole then I will destroy your precious temple."

"Ember and Flame, escort Cole and Magmus to one of the unoccupied islands. You two will guard him while the rest of us deal with this dragon."

The dragons nodded, flying off in search of an island with Cole and Magmus.

"Alright then if I have to go through you four then I would like to propose something." He said, looking over towards Cynder. "Let me fight the murderer first."

A saddened expression grew over Cynder's face.

Anger boiled from within Spyro. "How…"

"How dare you call her that!" Seth said, defending Cynder. "She was not aware of her actions. It was not her fault. Spyro with your permission I would like to take him on by myself."

* * *

"This looks like a nice place." Flame said, landing on the deserted island. He was followed by Ember. Before Cole could land lava flew up towards the sky, surrounding the island. Ember and Flame watched from the inside as the lave wall separated them from the outside.

"Now that they are gone it is only us two." Magmus said.

"What is the meaning of this, Magmus?"

"Spyro!" Ember Called out.


	4. Encounter

**Copyright: I do not own Spyro or anything Spyro related. It is all owned by Sierra Entertainment and Activision. I do own my original characters in the story.  
**

* * *

"That was Ember." Blair said, hearing the pink dragoness's plea for help.

"Cynder can you two handle this dragon?" Spyro asked.

"Yea, Seth and I got this Spyro." She said.

"Alright then, Blair the two of us will go support Ember." He said, flying off with Blair following him.

"The two of you really think that you will be enough for me." He said, chuckling. "The two of you are just kids; you wouldn't even be able to give me a scar."

"We are not kids anymore. We are fifteen years old." Cynder retorted.

"Dragons live to be hundreds of years old, so as far as I'm concerned you are still kids." The scarlet dragon said.

"Alright you asked for it. Seth, you ready?" She said, turning towards him. He nodded at her, indicating that he was ready. "Alright let's do this."

The fire dragon blew a fireball towards the dragons. Both Seth and Cynder extinguished the fireball with their combined wind breath.

"How did you do that?"

"Your fire is weak; it does not have any power or heat behind it." Cynder explained.

"How dare you say that I have trained for years perfecting my technique. I have even reached the class of apprentice."

"Then that is the problem you see the two of us are in the master class." She said.

"No that can't be."

"I am sorry sir, but I cannot forgive you for what you said to her." Seth said, opening his maw. "Wind Element: Cutting Wind Breath." Seth shot out a spinning breath of wind that traveled from his mouth to the fire dragon. The dragon had no time to prepare for the attack, and was instantly cut up by the wind breath. The attack opened up cuts throughout the dragon's body. Blood began flowing out of the newly formed wounds; the dragon began falling towards the ground.

"I will not let anyone hurt you Cynder." He said, turning towards her. "Whether it be emotional, or physical I will not let any pain come to you. If somehow you do receive pain I will make them pay."

"Thank you, Seth." She said, nuzzling up to him.

* * *

"What's that?" Blair said, pointing to the figure in front of them.

"It looks like another fire dragon. Our spy said that there were four of these guys. I'm guessing that this guy is the second one." Spyro said.

"I'll take him on Spyro. You go on ahead."

"No we should do it as a pair just like Cynder and Seth. That way we can watch each other's backs."

"No Spyro, at times like these we have to split up so you can go on ahead." She said.

"It's just that last time this happened." He said, trying to focus on the main objective.

"We are stronger this time Spyro don't worry about what happened last time. Focus on the now, and go on ahead." She received a nod from him.

He flew over the dragon, and left him to Blair. She stopped in front of him, waiting for him to make the first move.

"Well look what landed in front of me. By the looks of it you are a fire dragon as well let us see which one of us is stronger." He opened his maw, releasing his fire breath attack.

The attack covered Blair, who did not move out of the way, flapping her wings she extinguished the fire. "You are not on my level. Two years ago that was the same fire breath that I would use. Let me show you what a true fire breath feels and looks like." She said, opening her mouth.

A burst of flame escaped her maw. The dragon used his wings as a shield in hope that it would offer some protection against her fire breath. The attack covered the dragon, and he soon found out how much deadly her attack was than his. He began to feel the attack's heat increase, and that it was increasing in size. The dragon's skin was beginning to burn. His skin could not resist this kind of intensity. Blair saw the dragon fall to the island below her, he had passed out from pain.

"I guess our spy's information was wrong. They are not master class level." She said, flying away.

* * *

"What are you doing?" Spyro asked, staring across to his opponent. The dragon had encountered a dark red orange dragon. The two had landed on a deserted island that was resting on a crater of lava. At the moment the red-orange dragon was taking a weird pose that Spyro was not familiar with.

"You do not know what this is?" He asked.

"The only thing that comes to mind is that you are taking a fighting style stance." He responded.

"Exactly this is the Dragon Fist Style." He said, rushing at the purple dragon. Spyro began dodging the dragon's attacks with ease, but saw that the dragon had no intentions of fighting him. He only wanted to stall.

"So that's your plan alright then I'll end this fight." He said, beginning to open his maw.

A cloaked dragon appeared behind the dark red-orange dragon. "Heated Dragon Fighting Style: Burning Paralysis." He said, punching the dragon's spine with both his fist. The dragon fell towards the ground unable to move.

"Who are you?" Spyro asked.

"Long time no see Spyro." He said, throwing away his cloak. The dragon underneath had red and blue scales. He was the same age as Spyro, but a little bit taller than the dragon. His body type was the same as Spyro.

"Blaze!" Spyro said, rushing over to greet the dragon. "Thanks for the help."

"No problem, but by the looks of it you didn't need it. You were about to finish him off."

"Yea, but you did it with just your paws."

"Yea, it's thanks to the new fighting style I learned." He said.

"So I take it that you achieved Master Class as well?" Spyro asked.

"Yea, they gave me Master Class rank E."

"Wait rank E?" Spyro said in confusion.

"You didn't receive a letter?" Blaze said, wondering why Spyro didn't. "Maybe they forgot to give you one. Anyways I'm surprised that they sent you guys."

"Wait so you're the spy?"

"Yea I came here on my own. I thought that one of the Guardians was going to come, but I guess that they thought that you guys could handle it. Listen Spyro there is still one last dragon that we have to worry about, and another that I suspect could be traitorous."

"Who do you think that it could be?"

"The dragon that was hanging around Cole, Magmus."

"Alright then let's go." Spyro said, flying towards Cole.

As they were flying Spyro was tackled towards an island by another fire dragon.

"Spyro!" Blaze called out.

"You go on ahead; I will take care of this guy." He said, watching Blaze fly ahead just like he had been told. Spyro looked at the dragon in front of him and saw something strange about him. His eyes were giving off a dark red light.

"Who are you?"

"Defeat my pawn, and find out purple dragon." He said, breathing fire at Spyro.

He dodged the dragon's attacks and proceeded to open his maw, releasing a medium sized ice ball. It froze the dragon's fire breath. Spyro began covering his wings, hind legs, and forelegs in electricity. He flew towards the dragon, who could not keep up with Spyro. He saw that Spyro had covered his body parts in electricity so that he could increase his speed by some amount. Spyro began pummeling the dragon.

"Alright that is enough." The dragon said, before collapsing onto the ground. Spyro witnessed as another dragon made its way out of the fire dragon's body. A large scarlet scaled dragon stood in front of Spyro. "Long time no see purple dragon."

"Who are you?" Spyro asked.

"You don't remember me. I guess it is because when you first met me I looked like someone else." He appeared in front of the purple dragon, surprising him. "Let's see what the future holds. Does that ring any bells?"

Spyro jumped back, he tried remembering where he had heard those words before. "You, but how can it be. You were a cheetah."

"It was all a trick so you would not become suspicious." He said, backing away from Spyro.

"What do you want?"

"If you impress me I will tell you who I am." He said, smiling at him.

"Alright then, but from the looks of it unlike every dragon I have met here. You are actually a threat." He said, closing his eyes, and opening them to reveal that they were now highlighted dark purple.

"So you finally mastered those eyes." He said, throwing multiple punches at Spyro.

"Yes, and I can also do this." He said, incasing the dragons legs in earth. "And this Ice Element: Freezing Wind." Spyro began using his ice breath, but at the same time flapped his wings. The ice breath traveled further across the island. It began freezing a third of the large island. Spyro stopped his attack once he saw that his opponent was frozen solid. He began walking away.

"Not bad kid," the dragon said, shattering his frozen prison. "You've impressed me enough."

"How did you get out of that?" Spyro asked stunned.

"Because I am beyond your capabilities Spyro, but nonetheless you managed to impress me. There is no denying that you have grown since the last time I saw you. As a reward I will tell you who I am. I am the Judge of Dread: Syx, which means that I judge those who hate themselves."

"A Judge, so you judge the dead?" He asked.

"Yes, and even though I was asked not to inform you of this. I want to see what you will do with this information. One of our members is returning very soon. I believe that by the end of today he will be back. The Judge of Corruption: Malefor, with him our group will once again be complete."

"No that can't be he is dead."

"Yes, but with your help we brought him back Spyro. We used your blood and power to reawaken him. It took two years, but he will finally be freed of his crystal prison. I know what you are thinking where will he appear? There was a small town built by a cult devoted to Malefor. It is located where the Well of Souls used to be. They will be able to tell you his location once he escapes" He said.

"If what you say is true then just like the last time I will stop him." Spyro said, stepping forward.

The dragon smiled at Spyro's confidence. "Before I go I would like to ask. Do you still remember the prophecies I told you about during our first encounter?"

"Yes, and I still don't believe that they will come true."

"Still in denial I see it is pretty apparent that one has already come true. That other dragon is no longer with the rest of you. Was that not one of the predictions? I told you that the two of you would seek out different paths."

"Well that's just one, and from what Cynder told me about the prophecy you told her. As it stands now it is impossible for that prophecy to be fulfilled."

"Believe in what you want purple dragon. Just remember that currently there are many things that you and the Guardians should be worried about." He said before disappearing.

* * *

"I do not want you to leave." Magmus said.

"I need to leave because they need me at Warfang. I have to teach the new generations of dragons. I have already taught you everything that I know." Cole said.

"Fine then I can see that there is no reasoning with you. Lave Element: Lava Spit." He said, opening his maw, and shooting out a glob of lava.

"Fire Element: Fire Wall," Cole said, breathing out fire that took the form of a wall. It protected the dragon from Magmus's attack. "Do not do this Magmus, nothing will come out of it."

"If I become a threat to this city then you will have no choice, but to remain here as its leader." He said, flying lower towards the crater of lava. "Lava Element:," he said, placing his claw on his mouth. "Volcanic Awakening." He formed a small drop of lava on his claw.

"No! Do not do that Magmus."

"To late teacher." He said, letting the small drop of lava fall towards the lava crater.

The volcano began to shake with fury it was evident that the attack had forced the volcano into erupting.

"You fool, I was going to choose you as the new leader, but it looks like now you are going to be its destroyer." Cole said, flowing higher up into the air. He saw that his information had shocked Magmus. He put his paws out in front of him, and formed a circle with them. "Fire Element: Heat Divider."

The lava wall that had been encircling Flame and Ember began disappearing. They felt the heat from it begin to lower. The two looked up and saw that Cole had done something to make it disappear. The two were once again able to fly away from it. They flew towards Cole's location. They saw that Cynder, Seth, Blair, and what appeared to be Blaze were making their way towards him as well.

"Long time no see guys." Blaze said, joining up with them.

"Took you long enough to show up." Blair remarked.

"So what is the situation here?" Blaze asked.

"It seems that the volcano is going to blow up. I am afraid that I am going to need everyone's help if I am going to have any chance in stopping it. First are any of you wind dragons?" Cole asked.

"We are," Seth said, pointing to himself and Cynder.

"Ok when the volcano erupts, I will need the two of you to clear the skies of any black smoke. Do not let it reach the city. Judging by your scales, I'm guessing that all of you, excluding her are fire dragons. The three of you will encircle the volcano. If lava begins flowing towards the city the three of you will have to come up with a way to stop it. I will remain here, and find out a way to stop the lava from flowing out."

"That will not end well for you." Spyro said, arriving.

"I might perish, but at least the city will remain safe."

"Then let me do it." Magmus said, flying towards them. "After all this is my fault."

"Are you doing this because you feel sorry for what you have done, or because you believe that I am disappointed in you?"

"No I want to do this because it is my duty as a citizen. Since you are leaving this city, there is no reason for you to risk your life." He said, diving down towards the lava pit.

The dragon entered the lava pit. The others watched as the lava in the crater decreased in volume. The dragon was pushing the lava back into the volcano. He was stopping it from erupting. The dragon came out of it. His skin was boiling from the intensity of the heat. He landed on a small island. The dragons flew down towards him, Ember began treating his wounds.

"Did I do it?" Magmus asked.

"Yes, I am very proud of you Magmus." Cole said.

"I'm sorry for the way I acted teacher, I don't believe that I deserve the title of leader for this city." Magmus said.

"Your earlier actions certainly proved that, but what you did just now shows that you are on the right path. I will let the citizens decide who they deem worthy of becoming the next leader meanwhile you must let those wounds heal."

Cole took Magmus back towards the temple were he would be able to receive further aid for his wounds. The dragon explained what had happened to the older dragons. They agreed not to punish Magmus for his actions since he had stopped the eruption form occurring. Cole told them that he would let the citizens decide who the next leader should be. He walked back towards Magmus in order to say his farewells.

"I will be going to Warfang now, Magmus." He said.

"Yea, I understand. I hope that you will be a great contribution to them." Magmus said.

"I hope that one day you will be this city's leader." He said, turning towards the exit. "I'm sure you'll do just fine on your own. After all, you are my student."

Cole flew back down towards the entrance of the Fire City. Where he reunited with Spyro's group.

"Alright are all of you ready?" Spyro asked.

"I believe we are, let's get going." Cole said.

The dragons flew off back to Warfang.

* * *

**(A/N): The reason why this chapter took so long was because I decided to combine two chapters. The pacing in the fights were also much faster than previous ones. I wanted to show off that Spyro and his friends can now deal with enemies that would have been a problem for them two years ago very easily. This chapter was mainly to show off how much they've grown, and advance the plot of the story. I know that quality wise this chapter was not the best. Future chapters will be better. **


	5. Familiar Faces

**Copyright: I do not own Spyro or anything Spyro related. It is all owned by Sierra Entertainment and Activision. I do own my original characters in the story.  
**

* * *

"Welcome Cole," Ignitus said.

"I believe that you know who we are?" Terrador said.

"Yes, the Guardians, Terrador, Cyril, Volteer, and former Fire Guardian: Ignitus." Cole said.

"Our home is your home Cole. Please we ask that you rest up it must have been a long journey. You can find your room across the hall it is the first one on your left." Ignitus said.

"Thank you very much." He said, exiting the room.

"As for the rest of you," Ignitus said, examining the dragons. "I would like to congratulate you on your successful mission. All of you deserve a long nice rest."

The dragons cheered at the news that they had just been given. They began exiting the room. That is all, but Spyro.

"What is it young dragon?" Ignitus asked.

"During the mission I came across a very strange dragon. He kept on referring to himself as a judge of death, and said that Malefor would be returning on the day I met him. It has been three days since then. He also spoke of different ranks within the Master Class."

"Did you say judge of death?" Ignitus asked in amazement.

"And that Malefor had returned?" Cyril added.

"Yes, what did he mean by all that?"

_So they are finally making their move. Alright then we will also make our move. If I am right about this there is a way to end this before they get everything that they need to commence their plan. _Ignitus thought. "Listen to me young dragon if this is true then we must act at once. Malefor cannot be allowed to roam this world again. As for the person referring to himself as a judge of death, do not worry about him."

"So it finally happened? Ignitus the thing that you warned us about?" Terrador asked.

"Yes, I have felt his prison weakening overtime, but now I cannot even locate his whereabouts. Even using the pool of visions would be worthless. Malefor has returned, and it seems that this version is his younger self."

"You mean just after he gave himself over to the powers and influences of convexity?" Volteer asked.

"Yes, right after he gave himself into the power of convexity. He became corrupted under his own will, and not by the influence of convexity. You also spoke of different ranks within the master class. I will explain everything once the rest of your teammates return. Volteer bring the rest of them here."

Volteer flew out of the room in search of the rest of the dragons.

"Ignitus we should not let word get out through the cities. If word gets out that Malefor has returned everything we have worked so hard to rebuild will be lost in an instant." Cyril said.

"I am afraid that word has already gotten out, but not as accurate information. For now rumor is the only thing that is traveling around, but soon creatures will begin to see with their own eyes." Terrador commented.

Volteer flew in with the other dragons.

"Now that you are all here I can begin. First off you will begin a new mission, but I am aware that you need to rest. You will go off on this mission tomorrow morning. Today we will try our best to get you in perfect condition for tomorrow."

"What is this mission?" Flame asked.

"Spyro has informed me that Malefor has returned." Ignitus said, receiving gasps from the young dragons.

"No, I won't believe it. I saw him get sealed inside a crystal there is no way that he can be back." Cynder said, having a hard time accepting the dragon's return.

"I am afraid that he has. Spyro did that strange dragon tell you any further information?"

"He said that if we wanted to locate Malefor before he regained any troops that we should head to the Well of Souls. He said that a cult dedicated to Malefor has built a small village there. I suggest we go there first."

"Alright listen up young dragons." Ignitus said, getting their attention. "The seven of you will travel to that village to dig up any information about his whereabouts. Once you know where he is return here and report to me. From there we will come up with a plan on how to handle him."

"Well I guess it won't be that bad." Seth said, "We probably will not run into any trouble and if we do they should be easy to defeat."

"No, young dragon they will not be easy. It is time that I tell you of the different ranks in the Master Class. They go from rank S to G, with G being the lowest. Terrador here will inform all of you the class you fall under." Ignitus said, stepping back.

"Flame, Ember, and Seth the three of you are rank G. Cynder, Blair, and Blaze the four of you are rank F. Spyro I do not know what your rank is."

"I will be able to supply that information." Ignitus said, stepping forth. "Spyro you are the only one here with the rank of E. That means that out of those of your own age group you are the strongest, but Malefor himself once had a rank of G."

"So that means that we can beat him easily." Spyro said, relieved that their opponent was not going to be as tough as he had thought.

"No, that was it when you last faced him. I believe that at the moment if things are unchanged since back then, he has the rank of D. If you face him he will overpower you. This is why you travel as a team find out information and leave. The city's inhabitance if they are as loyal to him as I believe they are will rat you out to him. You go in there quickly and you leave quickly. Do not spend more than an hour there."

"Alright, sir." Spyro said.

"You are dismissed."

* * *

The next morning the dragons had taken off at the time that they had been requested to do so. They had been travelling all morning, and had almost arrived at their destination. Spyro saw that Cynder had been upset ever since she had heard that Malefor had returned. He wanted to cheer her up, but it seemed that Seth was doing that. He knew that Seth meant well, but he probably did not know what she was going through.

"Cynder it is alright, he will not be able to take control of you. Because none of us here will allow that, and I especially will see to it that he doesn't try to do anything like last time." Spyro said, trying to cheer her up.

"Thanks Spyro." She said, forming a smile.

"We are here." Blaze said, descending towards the small village. The rest followed him.

The first thing they saw was several dragons much older than them. They were all citizens of the village. They also saw that a couple of cheetahs and even moles were in it. They began walking into it asking anyone if they knew about Malefor. No one was giving them any answers.

"This is hopeless no one knows anything, and those who do refuse to share it with us." Flame said.

"Maybe you should try being more assertive." Blaze said, continuing to walk.

"Maybe we just need to ask the right types of creatures." Spyro said, looking around. He saw three dragons covered in cloaks walking across from him. Spyro noticed that they were the same size as him; he guessed that they were the same age as well. "There let's go ask them." He said, walking towards them. The group followed.

"What would dragons of our own age group be doing here?" Seth asked, walking cautiously towards them. "Shouldn't they be citizens of one of the dragon cities?"

"Well some dragons actually prefer to travel in small groups, because they enjoy seeing the world." Cynder answered him.

"Excuse me," Spyro said, trying to get their attention. "Do the three of you know anything about Malefor's location?" The three dragons stopped in their tracks.

"It has been a long time since I have heard that voice." A dragon's voice said.

Cynder and Spyro instantly recognized the voice. "No, not here." They said in unison.

The three dragons removed their hoods, revealing three young dragons from Spyro and Cynder's past. A green scaled male dragon was in the middle while two females, one with cyan scales and the other with light brown scales, stood at his sides.

"Long time no see Spyro and Cynder." Gen said, with Ares and Glacia at his sides. The dragons that had attempted to take Cynder's life two years ago where standing before the group.


	6. Familiar Faces 2

**Copyright: I do not own Spyro or anything Spyro related. It is all owned by Sierra Entertainment and Activision. I do own my original characters in the story.  
**

* * *

"What are you guys doing here?" Spyro asked.

"We are here to learn about Malefor's whereabouts." Glacia responded.

"We are going to defeat him." Ares said.

"Who are these guys?" Seth asked.

"Well it looks like you have new friends." Gen said, looking at the group. "Everyone who doesn't want to die leave this area now." He said, yelling at the crowd of creatures surrounding them. They immediately scattered, leaving only the two groups in the middle.

"Listen to me we outnumber them." Spyro said, whispering to his group. "Blaze and Blair, you take on the brown scaled one. Seth, you and Cynder take on Ares, while Flame and I take on Gen."

"I can give out orders as well purple dragon. Listen up you two our only objective is to kill the Terror of the Skies." Gen said, smiling at Cynder.

"What did you just call her?!" Seth said, flying towards Gen.

"Seth, wait!" Spyro called out.

"This is for Cynder," He said, punching Gen in the nose. He sent the green scaled dragon flying backwards. He followed him, and began punching every part of the dragon's body. He sent him flying into a small building, embedding him within its walls. "Do not call her by that name, Wind Element: Air cutter." He manipulated the wind around his arm. The wind itself was forming a blade like shape around his arm. "This is one of my strongest attacks, now begone."

He swung the blade in front of him. The blade cut the wind around him, and sent a large portion of uncontrolled wind towards Gen, who smiled at the incoming attack. The dragons witnessed as the attack made contact with its target. It destroyed the small building, blowing away all the debris. A small dirt cloud covered the area where Gen had been. The dragons waited for it to clear up.

"Good going Seth." Flame said, congratulating the dragon.

"Yea, good going but never do anything like that again." Cynder said, stepping towards the dragon. She planted a kiss on the dragon's lips much to Spyro's annoyance. "Thank you."

"I was just doing my job. Plus even if they are from our same age group I could tell that they were bad news."

"Next time we won't be here to save you." A voice said from within the dirt cloud.

The dragons shifted their direction back towards the dust.

"Don't forget who you are talking to, Sypher. You used to follow me. It doesn't matter that he made you second in command." Gen said.

"I will not argue with you Gen, you should be thanking me instead of yelling at me." Sypher said.

The cloud cleared revealing two dragons of the same height and body type, standing in front of Gen. The one standing directly in front of him had protected him against Seth's attack. The one next to him had his back turned to Spyro's group. The two of them were also wearing cloaks.

"Now all of you are going to get it. Our strongest members are here." Ares said.

"Check it out Spyro," Blaze said, "It looks like that dragon protected him from the attack, and by the looks of it he suffered no damage from the attack."

"No, he must have suffered some internal damage. The attack he was hit with is one of Seth's strongest." Cynder said.

"Can I finish him off?" Gen said, getting out of the small wall that remained of the building.

"He doesn't have any scars on him." Ember said, "Even though he suffered a beating from Seth."

"No, I'll take care of this." The dragon said, removing his hood. It revealed to them a dragon with light blue scales. He also had multi colored eyes one was dark red, while the other was dark blue. "You always underestimate your opponent."

He rushed towards Seth, appearing right in front of the dragon.

"You think you are faster than me? I am the fastest dragon in Warfang." He said, throwing punches at Sypher.

The light blue scaled dragon dodged all of them. He delivered a punch to the dragon's stomach, knocking him out cold. "Perhaps in Warfang you are the fastest, but there are many dragons in the world that outpace you." He delivered a punch to his face, sending the dragon flying backwards.

Cynder caught him in midair, but she too was sent flying backwards due to the force at which he had been sent. It took her a moment to regain her composure. She looked at him; she immediately noticed that he was not breathing. Blood was coming out of his mouth.

"Give him to me Cynder, I will try my best to heel him." Ember said, arriving where Cynder had landed.

"Alright," she said giving her to him. "I'm going to make them pay." She said, flying back to the area in front of her. "Spyro let's do this, I want to finish them for what they did to Seth."

_She only used to get like this when something happened to me._ Spyro thought.

"Spyro give the order!" Cynder shouted.

"No, I can't." he said.

"Why not?!" She shouted.

"I am not going to sacrifice the whole team; because one of our teammates let their emotions get the better of them." He said, looking as the five dragons in front of him. "Besides we have to gather information on Malefor so we can come up with a way to deal with him."

"I'm sorry to tell you this Spyro." Their leader said, shocking the remaining members of Spyro's group. "But I am the one who is going to kill that pathetic dragon." He said, turning around to them and removing his hood.

The dragons stared at awe at the dragon behind the hood. It was a light grey dragon who looked identical to Spyro. The differences being the grey scales, dark grey underbelly and horns, which were different in color from Spyro's. He had also grown more spikes on his head, during the two years unlike Spyro. The dragon had several rows of spikes on his head, but only one that traveled to his tail. The dragon was the same height as Spyro. His body type was built for speed unlike Spyro's, which was mainly for strength.

"Long time no see, Spyro."

"Rai, is that really you." Spyro asked.

"Do not interfere with my plans Spyro, because if you do I will kill everyone here. That dragon was only a warning." Rai said, stepping closer to the group.

"Why did you do it, Rai?" Blaze questioned. "He was our friend, and he would have been yours if you had stayed."

"I never considered any of you my friends. In fact seeing all of your faces pisses me off to no end. I will say it one more time get the hell out of here or die." He said.

"Why did you do it Rai, I loved that dragon. I thought that you wanted me to be happy." Cynder said, trying to get him to talk.

"So what is it going to be Spyro?" Rai said, ignoring Cynder.

"I'll tell you what my answer is, Fire Element: Multiple Ember Shots." Blaze said, releasing multiple fire embers from his mouth.

Rai raised his paws in front of him and parted them. The hot embers followed the paths of his paws. They missed the grey dragon completely.

"You will have to do much better than that." He said.

_That was just like when we last fought. He was able to control the path my flames took. _Spyro thought to himself.

"Alright then how about this Fire Element: Fire Scorch." He said, releasing a flame cloak that covered Rai.

"Not bad," he said, stepping back. "But they are not hot enough. I remember your flames being much hotter than this, or maybe I'm making it so that they do not even touch me." The flames began to come off of Rai and form a medium sized fire ball in front of him. "No this is too small for me." He said, extinguishing the flames. "Let me show you what a true fire attack is like, Fire Element: True Giant Fire Ball."

"He can use fire attacks?" Blaze asked, getting engulfed by the large attack.

"Blaze!" Blaire yelled out. She witnessed his scorched up body hit the ground. The fire dragon was unconscious.

"How is he able to use fire attacks without being a fire dragon?" Spyro asked himself.

"In two years I was able to learn fire attacks and much more. None of you can stop…"

"Let's see you dodge this." Spyro said, appearing in front of Rai. Spyro's body was flickering yellow. He began throwing punches at Rai with tremendous speed. He was dodging all of them.

"So you learned that attack in two years." He said, catching the purple dragon's fist. "I will admit that I have yet to learn that attack, but I no longer need it. My speed has increased beyond expectations."

"You've been toying with us haven't you?" Spyro asked, realizing the truth.

"You cannot beat us." He said, turning over to his group. "Ares tell me their rank."

"It seems that the pink, red-orange, and light green scaled dragons are rank G. Everybody else but Spyro are rank F. Spyro himself is rank E." Ares responded.

"How did she know?" Spyro asked in confusion.

"She has the green gem element. It allows her to sense the element power of others." Rai said, releasing Spyro's fist.

"What is your grouped ranked?"

"Ares, Glacia, and Gen are rank E the same as yours. Seifer and I both have the rank of D. You guys do not stand a chance against us." He said, backing away from Spyro. "Two of your members are already in critical condition. I have no interest in any of you anymore."

"In two years you became this strong? You can use fire attacks even though you are clearly not a fire dragon. Why? And what for?" Spyro asked.

"To fulfill my goal." He said, rejoining his group.

"What goal?!"

"I will not tell, but let's just say that the first step involves killing Malefor." He said, flying up into the air with his group. "I will not kill you here, but please do not get the intention that it is because I still consider you my friends. I will let you live, because I choose to. There is no other reason." He said, flying away from the group.

"What now Spyro?" Flame asked.

"We go back, and tell the guardians that Rai has the situation under control. I mean we were originally doing this to come up with a way to defeat Malefor, but if Rai is going to do this then we no longer have a purpose in continuing our quest."

"We need to go after him. What Rai and his group did to Seth is unforgivable." Cynder said.

"No, for now we go back to Warfang." He said. _It was nice seeing you again, and I am glad that you were able to move on. Maybe when you are done with your main goal, you will return and we can hang out like how we used to. I saw it in your eyes, the loneliness is still there, but somebody is keeping you in check. You've made a true genuine friend within that group. Whoever that dragon is, he will not let you down unlike I who did. Your disappointment and hatred has been replaced with confidence. You actually believe in yourself. _"I'll be waiting for our next meeting Rai." Spyro said to himself as he flew off into the sky.


	7. Breaking Free

**Copyright: I do not own Spyro or anything Spyro related. It is all owned by Sierra Entertainment and Activision. I do own my original characters in the story.  
**

* * *

"This looks like a good place to rest." Spyro said, landing on a small field. The other members of the group followed him. "Alright Ember heal Seth and Blaze so that we can continue moving on."

"Wait why aren't we going after them?" Cynder questioned.

"That group is on a completely different level. We are no match for them."

"Spyro is right Cynder," Blair said. "That one dragon knocked out Seth with one punch, and Rai took out Blaze with one attack."

"Rai has grown so strong since we last saw him. It looks like he can now use fire element attacks even though he is not a fire dragon." Flame added.

"Not only that, but it looks like he can control fire, something that no other fire dragon can do. His fire is also strong enough to critically injure Blaze, who is known for having an incredible high tolerance to fire even for a fire dragon." Blair added

"But once Blaze and Seth have recovered we might have a chance, Spyro." Ember said.

"It would be seven against five. We saw three of those dragons in action. One was hit by an onslaught of attacks from Seth and received no damage. The other two are said to be on an even higher level than that dragon. For now we retreat." Spyro said.

* * *

"According to the villagers, Malefor is currently residing in a castle that was kept hidden from the other dragons. It was only known to Gaul and his apes. He kept it close to the Well of Souls in case he would ever have to rebuild his army from scratch." Ares said.

"So it's his personal getaway place." Gen said, continuing to fly. "Once we get there I will personally destroy that castle myself."

"No one will go into that castle but me." Rai said, flying ahead of them. "I will face him on my own."

"What the hell Rai? The only reason that I decided to follow you was because you promised to show us the location of Malefor's personal guard." Gen said.

"I do not recall asking any of you to follow me." Rai said, stopping in mid-flight. "When the four of you came to me, I could tell what your true intentions were. I could easily tell that Sypher wanted to join up with me for his own personal reasons. You three on the other hand only wanted to join up with me so that you could use me." He said, turning to face them.

"Once you told us that you were the infamous dragon, we figured that you would eventually lead us to those dragons and help us destroy them." Glacia said.

"Since the three of you have helped me this much, I will find out their locations from Malefor." He said, continuing to fly. "All I ask is that you remain outside of the castle, and make sure that no one interferes."

"Alright we will do that, but after that you help us." Gen said, following the dragon.

"There it is," Ares said. They saw a dark and gloomy castle in the center of the rocky area. The dragons flew down towards the castle's entrance.

"Alright, Glen, Ares, and Glacia the three of you will stay here. Sypher you will come with me into the castle." Rai said, opening the door to the castle.

"Why isn't Sypher going to guard the castle with us?" Gen asked.

"Because I say so," Rai said, walking into the castle with the light blue colored dragon.

"Are you sure that you can handle this on your own?" Sypher asked.

"You fought against me all those years ago Sypher, you should have an idea of how strong I am now. Besides in our group you are the only one who is on my level. So let me ask you this. Do you believe that you can handle Malefor on your own?" He said, looking at Sypher who gave him a sly grin. "You have your answer."

"So why did you separate me from the group?"

"I needed to talk to you in private. Out of everyone that I have ever met, you are the only one who has experienced the same things that I have. Because of this I want to tell you something." He said, leaning close to the dragon. Rai whispered something to Sypher.

"That's your dream?" Sypher asked.

"Yes, unlike my overall goal the dream that I have is closer to impossible, but I feel that it is something that must come true. I've only told you this because you are the only one that understands that feeling." He said, walking past Sypher. "Now go meet up with the others."

"Is that your only reason for telling me?"

"If you must know there are other reasons, but for the moment I will only tell you one other and that is trust." He said, walking towards the castle's main room.

"Telling your dreams to the dragon that almost killed you is pretty foolish. You should know Rai that I am not a trustworthy dragon. I also know that you are a great manipulator, telling me something like that could be a trick. You could have told me that to trick me into following you without question. Regardless I will continue to follow you, until I discover your true motives." He said to himself, walking back outside.

Rai walked deeper into the castle, trying to hold in the feelings that were resurfacing. He would soon meet the dragon that made him who he was. Malefor would finally die by his paws. He stepped into the main room, and across from him he saw the dark purple dragon. Malefor was sitting down, staring at him from across the room. Rai could tell right away that it was a younger version of Malefor. He was told long ago by Slifer that he would be returning younger than the last time he knew him. He was still the same size, but he had a better build. The dragon looked more energetic and powerful. This Malefor was closer in age to an adult dragon than an elder dragon.

"Well if it isn't my favorite failure." Malefor said, standing up on all fours. "Long time no see Rai."

"I am here to kill you Malefor." Rai responded.

"Ah yes, I figure that you wish to prove to yourself that you are not weak. But you will soon come to…"

"I am not here to prove anything." Rai said, cutting the dragon off. "A few years ago you would have been absolutely right, but not anymore. I am here to kill you, because your death will get me closer to my overall goal."

"Really, you don't even want to kill me out of revenge or hate for what I did to Cynder?" He asked, trying to get under the dragon's skin.

"The only creatures that I have any hate for reside in Warfang." He said, appearing instantly in front of Malefor. "Let us begin."

"Alright have it your way." He said, throwing a punch at the dragon.

"Throwing punches wildly like that will result in nothing. You need to learn how to properly fight." He said, delivering a swift combo of punches and kicks to Malefor.

"That fighting style, do not tell me that you have trained under Quantum Flare." He said, jumping back.

"Yes, I have." He said, walking towards Malefor. "You who chose to abandon proper fighting styles in exchange for pure energy attacks cannot beat me with punches and kicks."

"That is why I will rely on my elemental attacks, Ice Element: Multiple Giant Ice Maces," He said, releasing multiple ice maces across the room. "Now take this Earth Element: Inclosing Stone Walls." He stomped his hind legs, bringing forth giant walls from the ground. They began boxing Rai in.

"Fool," Rai said, jumping into the air. His talons became engulfed in fire. "Fire Element: Fire Point." He released fire from his talons.

The small points shot out towards the ice maces. Each hit their targets, triggering multiple bursts of ice. Mist covered the room, sealing off Malefor's view of Rai. Slowly the dragon came into view, revealing that he had used Malefor's own attack to stop his other. The walls had been frozen by the burst of ice from the maces. They broke into shards of ice.

"My turn," he said, bringing up his left hand in front of him. The arm was immediately covered in wild lightning. The core of the lighting was at the base of his paw. It was giving off wild streaks of lighting. "This used to be an attack that I struggled with. It used to also be my strongest attack. Now I can easily create this attack with one arm and minimal effort. It has also dropped from a last resort to a signature one. This is the attack I use most often, Lightning Element: Gauntlet." He said, appearing right in front of Malefor again.

"Electric Element: Electric Field Shield," He said, releasing a field of electricity from his newly created shield.

"All electric attacks are useless against my lightning." He said, pushing his arm right through the shield. "This is the end for you Malefor." He said, penetrating the dragon's chest. "What's this?"

The dragon in front of him began to turn into stone. "Not bad kid, but too bad you couldn't see through such a simple disguise." He said, coming out of the ground. "That was my Earth Element: Impersonation attack. I use the earth itself to mold a perfect figure of me. One that can even use my own attacks, I believe that it is something that you haven't seen yet."

"You are right," Rai said, activating his divine eyes. "It is something that will never get passed me again."

"So you also possess those damn annoying eyes. It's alright because they will not help you in the long run." He said, punching his fist at the ground. He brought it up revealing that it was infused with stone. "Earth Element: Earth Fusion." He said, approaching the dragon.

Rai saw that Malefor was not just approaching him, but that the purple dragon was sliding against the earth. He was increasing his speed by sliding across the stone ground. He was using the ground to increase the force of the punch.

"Fine by me, let us see who will prevail." He said, covering the tips of his talons in fire again, but this time the middle of his paw was also covered. "Fire Element:"

"This will break every bone in your body." Malefor said, throwing the stone infused fist at the dragon.

Rai caught it, "Fire Flow!" The fire from his paw found its way into the purple dragon's stone fist, but it quickly resided back towards Rai. "You also put earth energy into it didn't you?"

"Of course, in order to increase its strength, now let me blast you away with its hidden energy."

"Don't worry; I'll make sure that you fail." Rai said, stepping away from the dragon. "Shadow Element: Shadow Engulf." He said, engulfing Malefor's arm in his own shadow. The shadow broke the dragon's stone fist.

"I always knew that you could use lightning, and you using fire made me question what kind of dragon you truly might be. But now by showing that you can use a third element confirms my suspicions. Those grey scales that have slowly started to turn silver during the course of our battle, and the fact that you can use more than one element. There is no mistaking what you are, because I have come across only one other type in my life time. You are a celestial dragon."

"So you know," Rai said, smiling at him. "Yes, I am a celestial dragon. A dragon that is born with a specific objective, I'm sure you know what that is. My purpose is to kill a purple dragon that has turned towards convexity. One is born only when a purple dragon has or will let itself get taken over by convexity. I was born to kill you Malefor."


	8. Breaking Free 2

**Copyright: I do not own Spyro or anything Spyro related. It is all owned by Sierra Entertainment and Activision. I do own my original characters in the story.  
**

* * *

"Tell me Rai, what is it that you hope to accomplish by defeating me?" Malefor asked.

"You once wanted to destroy this world in order to usher in a new age. You succeeded in destroying it, but it was Spyro who ushered in the new age. There are certain creatures in my way that I must kill in order for my plan to succeed. You are one of them, and the first that I have located."

"Now I get it. You are planning on becoming this world's master, and in order to do that you must first get rid of the competition." Malefor said, laughing at Rai. "You have no idea how many more dragons there are that are stronger than me. I'll put it to you this way I am the tip of the iceberg."

"I know about the Judges, and believe me when I say that they will fall to me." Rai said.

"You will try, but you will fail." He said, opening his mouth. "Fire Element: Fire Breath," he said, releasing fire towards Rai.

"Fire Element: True Grand Fire Ball," he said, releasing the giant fire ball towards Malefor. "Time to increase its energy with this Fire Element: Fire Breath." The Fire breath mixed in with the fire ball, pushing it along the sky towards Malefor's fire breath.

The two attacks collided against each other in the air. Rai's fire attack began pushing Malefor's fire back towards him.

"You are not the only one who can add to their attack, Fire Element: Fire Bomb." He said, releasing a large globe of fire into his flames.

The burst of fire travelled further into the collision where it exploded upon contact with Rai's fire. The attack added tremendous energy to Malefor's fire attack. It began pushing it back towards Rai. Rai added more energy into his fire, creating a stalemate between the two. Malefor began using his earth element in an attempt to cover up Rai's mouth. Rai placed his paw out in front of him, continuing to release the fire through his paw. Malefor felt something creeping up his back. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that the shadows had traveled up his body, and where now placed against his neck.

"Stop the ground form covering my body, and I will remove my shadows from your throat." Rai said. Malefor released his hold on Rai, and the silver dragon did the same. "Alright now you're mine," he said, creating a circle of fire in front of his paw that he had on the fire. "Fire Element: Fire Rune Style, Rune Flame." The color of Rai's flame changed from a yellow orange to red.

It began engulfing Malefor's own flame. Rai was using Malefor's own attack against him by using his fire to fuel his attack. The purple dragon watched as his flames were absorbed into the fiery red flames. He grinned at the sight of what he was up against. It had been a long time since someone had pushed him this far on a one on one battle. He released more flames into his attack, but these were different from his previous ones. They were purple and infused with another element. Rai's red flames were being incinerated, and pushed back by the purple flames. He watched as the flames made their way over towards him, engulfing him in there destruction. The purple flames continued on past the main room, travelling across the entire castle. By the time the flames had stopped half of the castle was on fire.

"I might have over done it a bit, but I proved my point." Malefor said, looking at the damage his purple flames had done. "I had forgotten just how powerful my attacks used to be."

"Are you done praising yourself?"

Malefor looked across the room. He saw that an area covered in purple flames was slowly being extinguished. He saw that Rai was stepping out of it. His cloak had been burned off of him by the fire. His body had a couple of scratches and burns on it.

"How did you survive?" Malefor asked, staring at the damaged dragon in front of him.

"Controlling convexity flames seems to be tougher than controlling regular flames. I was able to manipulate your attack's heat, but that was all I was able to do. I could not make the flames avoid me."

"You have finally proven to me that you can hold your own against me. If I had been in my older body, I might be losing right now. From this moment forth I will fight you with my full strength." He said, retaking his battle stance.

"Before we continue I would like to ask you something Malefor. How was it that you let two dragons beat you? There was no way that two dragons with minimal training, and experience could have beaten you. You were herald as the strongest purple dragon since the original. Your name alone used to send fear to the hearts of your opponents. So how was it that the Dark Master Malefor was defeated by two dragons?"

"You probably expect me to make up an excuse. Like the Ancestors were the ones who truly defeated me, but I will not. You see Rai they defeated me with a power that you will most likely fall victim to as well. In the end my ambitions, my enjoyment for destruction, and my obsession to recreate a new era fell victim to the simplest of things. It was their love that defeated my pride. It will also be the thing the defeats your goal."

"You do not know what it is that I want to accomplish."

"You are right I do not, but whatever you are planning is being fueled by a negative emotion. Your ambitions will be defeated by a positive one." Malefor said, smiling at the dragon.

"What if I told you that I plan on killing every single dragon that has ever judged others for who they were? I'll kill them for what they thought of me, giving off fake smiles pretending to be creatures that they were not. Even when somebody truly wants to be part of their group they ignore them. They believe you to be a screw-up somebody who will never amount to anything. I'll show them what a screw-up can do by becoming the master of this world. I chose to be an outcast because nobody wanted me. My hatred, one that stems from loneliness, will obliterate their love, which stems from companionship." Rai said.

"You know what kid, you've grown up. No longer are you that whiny dragon that I kept in a cage. You are now somebody that has set goals for themselves, and is actually accomplishing them." He said, stomping his left hind leg on the ground. "Now let's see if you can get this one done."

The stone floor below them began turning a shade of purple. Holes began opening up in random spots across the floor. Rai took to the sky in order to avoid falling down one of the holes. He looked across the field, and saw that Malefor was still on the ground. Whatever Malefor was preparing he had to stop him before it was too late. He flew towards the dragon, making another gauntlet in the process.

"That again? Didn't you learn last time that close combat moves are useless against me?" He said, moving his limbs across the ground, while stomping his tail on the ground. The purple earth surrounding him began to morph, encircling the dragon. It was protecting Malefor from all directions, making it impossible for his opponent to know where he was. Rai continued forward, using his divine eyes to see every movement the earth made.

"There!" he said, spearing his arm through the purple earth. He heard a cringing sound coming from within the earth.

"Not bad," Malefor said.

Rai tried removing his hand from the earth, but he realized that he was stuck. The stone floor began covering the grey dragon completely, turning him to stone. Malefor slowly came out of the ground, presenting himself to his petrified opponent. He looked across the field and saw that his attack was ready. The holes within the floor had finally been charged.

"Perhaps I'll keep you as a trophy, but killing you now is better." He said, clawing at the ground. The stone floor began to elevate itself, turning upwards ninety degrees. The floor was being held up by the earth that Malefor used to push it up. The holes were now facing the statue. "Convexity Earth Element: Multiple Radiant Energy Shots."

The holes began shooting out multiple energy beams at the stature. The shadows across the castle began to stretch themselves across the area, covering the statue. They began enveloping the statue into the darkness. The beams of energy began clashing against the shadows, dispersing energy through the castle. The beams continued to shoot out of the holes. They drew energy from the earth itself making the attack near almost limitless. They began ricocheting off of the dense substance that the shadows had taken on. The beams burned into the walls eradicating anything that they came in contact with. The shadows began moving forth, covering the holes in the floor. Malefor saw that the energy in the holes was building up. The shadows were keeping all the energy within the holes. He knew what was going to come next. All the holes covered in flames exploded, shaking the castle to its core. The energy from the explosion destroyed the roof of the castle. Once the dust settled Malefor saw that the foundation of the castle had been severely damaged and that multiple walls had come down.

"Damn him. He was still able to act even in that condition." He said, staring at the statue as it appeared out of the shadows. "Alright I'll end this with my own fists." He said, approaching the statue.

When he got within inches of it the statue began crackling with lighting. Malefor got hit by one of the lightning streaks that began traveling through the statue. He backed away as pain surged through his body from the instant of contact with the lightning. The statue began to crack, revealing a much active Rai. The lightning was still traveling throughout his body.

"I call this Lightning Element: Body Current. It is a defensive move where I send lightning travelling through my whole body." He said, disabling the attack. "Now where were we?"

The two dragons flew towards each other, attempting to make contact with the other. Malefor grabbed onto Rai's tail with his teeth. He sent the dragon towards the ground. Rai regained control, landing softly on the ground. He saw Malefor landing right next to him. He threw a punch at Rai, but the silver dragon managed to sidestep it. Rai looked into Malefor's eyes as he backed away.

"You are only postponing the inevitable Rai. I have been on the offensive ever since I switched to using convexity. If you bow down to me, and swear your allegiance I will let you be part of my soon to be army." Malefor said, looking at the panting dragon across from him.

"Never!" he said, rushing at the dragon.

"How foolish of you." He said, opening his mouth. He put both of his paws in front of his mouth. He was breathing out a medium sized object, and using his hands to control it. It was surging with purple electricity. "When convexity is mixed with other elements it powers that element up exponentially. Even a lightning dragon like you will feel pain from this. Convexity Electric Element: Electric Static Disperser." He said throwing the electrified object at Rai.

Rai saw the attack floating his way, and dodged it. He continued making his way towards Malefor when he felt a sharp pain through his body. Somehow the attack had hit him. He tried moving, but the attack was messing with his nervous system. When he tried moving his hind leg his tail would move instead. He looked up and saw that Malefor was standing in front of him. The purple dragon hit his tail against the ground. Rai felt something go through his stomach. He looked towards his back, and saw that a sharp piece of rock was sticking out of him.

"Earth Element: Stalagmite," Malefor had brought up a stalagmite from the ground, piercing Rai's body. "I made it so that my electric attack would follow you wherever you went. I was able to do this by making its electric flow the same as your lightning flow. When you hit me with your lightning attack I was able to tell the flow of your lighting."

"Now I see why the ancestors herald you as one of the strongest dragons ever born. You don't just use brute force. You can come up with impressive tactics on the spot." Rai said, coughing up blood.

"In the end it seems that your so called hatred was not able to beat by pride. Any last words, dragon?"

"What happened to your personal guard? The team of dragons from my age group that you put together in order to protect you. I've heard from others that they never left your side. I want to know what happened to them." He said.

"They were formed after the first time that I was defeated. It was about a year after I had imprisoned you. I formed a team of six talented dragons. Gaul was in charge of training them, and showing them how to use their powers. They were very promising. We pitted them against all of the other weaklings that we had captured. Every dragon that they went up against was soundly defeated."

"Why didn't I face them?"

"I recall specifically telling Gaul to only give you an opponent once a year, but even then dragons in your group would have never gone up against them. The group that I had classified you into was reserved for those who constantly tried rebelling against me. So I made that group fight against each other. Eventually I sealed up all of the survivors from that group. After I returned, and created the Floating Islands I sealed several of you in different castles. I split up the group of six dragons, and erased their memories of me. It was a fail-safe in case they ever decided to rise against me, but make no mistake they still hold all of the deadly skills that they learned when they worked for me."

"Where are they located now?"

"They have integrated themselves into the newly established dragon society. They reside in different cities. I don't know what kind of dragons they are now, but if I ever wanted to remind them of their former lives I could do it in an instant. Now I'll take your life away." He said, moving towards Rai. "This is the end for you Rai. Out of all the dragons that I captured you where the one that had the potential to kill me, but it seems you failed." He said, stomping his tail on the ground again. Another stalagmite shot up from the ground, piercing Rai's heart.


	9. Breaking Free 3

**Copyright: I do not own Spyro or anything Spyro related. It is all owned by Sierra Entertainment and Activision. I do own my original characters in the story.  
**

* * *

"You'll have to do more than that to kill me Malefor." Rai said, sliding his body up the stalagmite. Blood sliding against the rock formation as he did, Malefor had a hard time believing what he saw. Rai was standing in front of him, acting like the holes in his body where nothing. He then saw the room around him shift and twist.

"What is this?"

"This is my own personal reality, I will make you live in this world for a while. But don't worry because I will kill you in the real world where your motionless body resides."

"This is an illusion," Malefor said, trying to remember how he could have made it happen. "Damn, it was when he looked into my eyes, and I had done everything I could to avoid them. Those eyes are too damn annoying." He said to himself. "There is only one way out of this." He said, concentrating on the area around him. A sharp of rock shot up from the ground, piercing the purple dragon's left hind leg. He saw the illusion in front of him disappear, revealing a less damaged Rai in front of him. This was the real Rai.

"Impressive you actually managed to bring yourself back to reality." He said, smiling at Malefor.

"I'm done with this Rai." Malefor said, opening up his mouth. "Convexity Element: True Convexity Blast." He said, releasing the pure dark purple beam towards the grey dragon. It hit its target dead on; Rai was engulfed by the purple light. Malefor watched as the true power of convexity ended his opponent's life.

* * *

"What's that?" Ember said, pointing to the small purple light off in the distance.

"It looks like there is a fight going on over there." Flame added.

"Damn if only I hadn't let him get the better of me." Blaze said, recovering from his injuries. "We could have gotten some information on Malefor's location."

"I can tell you right now that it would not have mattered. Right now I am positive that Malefor is fighting against someone who is his equal." Spyro replied. "As soon as Blaze and Seth fully recover we will move out."

* * *

Malefor continued putting more energy into his attack. He was not going to rest until he made sure that his opponent was dead. This attack was the embodiment of who he was, and how he felt. It demonstrated his entire power. He felt his energy draining from him. He had sustained the attack for several minutes now, and it was beginning to take its toll on him. He ended the attack, wanting to save some energy in case something unexpected happened.

"Even with the boost in energy, I can hardly stand up. I take it that the attack was your strongest." A voice said, from the dust cloud.

Malefor flapped his wings, clearing the dust. It revealed that his attack had destroyed one third of the castle, and dug deeply into the ground. It had destroyed all forms of life within half a mile in the direction it was aimed at. Only a single being had survived it. He had his right forearm in front of his face. It had several strange dark marking around it. He was panting heavily from the damage he had sustained from the attack. He had blood running down several parts of his body.

"How did you survive that?"

"I used the same power that you used to cast it. I used this arm as a shield to deflect the attack, but it still did immense damage to my body." Rai said, stepping forward towards Malefor.

"What are those strange marking on your arm?"

"I was taught how to control convexity. You see since I am not able to get corrupted, I am able to control this element. Unlike others that use the element. I am not being used by convexity I am using it. As you can see I am able to summon the element to only a portion of my body. Also unlike others I receive this marking instead of having my scales completely darken." He said, making them disappear. "I can even force them to disappear on will alone."

"Damn you," He said, stepping towards the dragon. He fell towards the ground from the loss of energy. "What is this? My body it feels numb. What have you done?"

"When you were hit by one of my lightning streaks it slowly began damaging your body from the inside. Now it is time for you to burn, Fire Element: Fire Dragon Attack." He said, opening his mouth and blowing a large fire object, in the shape of a dragon, towards Malefor. The dragon was engulfed by it, his body began to burn from the attack. "Shadow Element: Silent Pierce." Malefor was pierced in several places by the shadows.

"You think this is enough to stop me, because if you do then you will fail." He said, getting to his feet. He was horribly burned, and had blood coming out from the small holes in his body.

"No, this is the first step in finishing you." he said, opening his mouth. "Fire Element: Pure Fire." He said, releasing a single powerful flame towards the sky.

It made contact with it, and slowly clouds began to form. The clouds where no ordinary ones they were thunder clouds. Rain began pouring down on the castle, and unto the battlefield. Rai and Malefor were both getting soaked in the rain. Rai flew up on to the castle. Malefor followed not wanting to let his opponent get away. He saw that the dragon was standing on the very highest point of the castle while he was only on the roof.

"This is where it ends Malefor. By killing you I will take my first step towards becoming this world's master." He said, releasing a lightning bolt towards the storm clouds. "With this I cut all ties to the past, and focus solely on the present. I'll finally be out of that cage that you kept me in for so long. Let the white light bring your end. Be eradicated by my hatred, Lightning Element: Fallen Lightning."

All the lightning that the clouds were producing merged in a single are. They released the huge amount of energy that had been acquired. A blast of lightning was sent towards Malefor, hitting him at the speed of light. The huge current of lightning also managed to hit what remained of the castle, creating a huge blast upon impact. The attack was only seen for an instant, but the white bluish light that it gave off traveled across the land.

* * *

It made it towards Spyro's group who were flying towards Warfang.

"What was that strange light?" Seth asked.

"It doesn't concern us we should keep on moving." Cynder said.

"Spyro it looked like some sort of attack." Blaze commented.

"Don't be ridicules, what kind of an attack is that large? It also just appeared, and then disappeared instantly. What attack does that?" Blair said.

They all wondered what the light could have been. The group heard a loud thunderous sound, coming from the same direction that the light had come from. It became clear to them what it was.

"I wonder if he actually did it?" Spyro asked to himself.

* * *

Rai looked down at the area that he had been fighting in. The castle had been blown away by his attack. It had all been turned into debris, and was now laying in several piles scattered throughout the area. The castle had disappeared the instant his attack hit. He made his way down towards the wreckage. He landed on the ground, and stared blankly at the sky. He deactivated his divine eyes. He had finally accomplished what he had set out to do. He could now solely focus on the future.

"I did it, I beat Malefor." Rai said, forcing himself to stay up.

"Who did you beat?!"

Rai looked around, trying desperately to find the dragon that had spoken those words. He saw a huge pile of debris a few feet away from him. The wreckage began to move, pushing rocks away from the dragon underneath the rubble. A purple arm made its way out of the rubble followed by a tail. Than before Rai's eyes Malefor came out of it, starring directly at Rai. The grey dragon wondered how his opponent had survived his attack. At first he believed that Malefor had somehow dodged it which should have been impossible, but then he took a closer look at the dragon. His body had been horribly burned from the lightning, and from the looks of it he still had lightning traveling through his body. It was an after effect from being hit by the huge lightning current. Even though the purple dragon was still standing in front of him, it was only a matter of time before he collapsed.

"Why come back at all if you are in such a terrible shape?" Rai asked.

"Because I can see that you actually believe that you can fulfill that dream of yours. I was able to live through that attack. I must admit though that it took several layers of my convexity shield. That attack was just a single lightning current and it did all this." He said, walking towards the dragon. "Even if you do become the master of this world nothing will change."

"You are wrong Malefor. You wanted to change this world. I only want to recreate it." Rai said, moving towards him.

"Recreate it, I wonder if that is what your father is trying to do." Malefor said.

"What did you just say?"

"In the end," he said, falling down on the floor. "You managed to kill me," he began disappearing. "But in doing so you did exactly what they wanted. Out of all of the dragons I kidnapped you were the most prominent." The Dark Mastered disappeared, accepting his death.

"Damn you Malefor." Rai said, collapsing on the ground.


	10. Chronicler's Room

**Copyright: I do not own Spyro or anything Spyro related. It is all owned by Sierra Entertainment and Activision. I do own my original characters in the story.  
**

* * *

Rai slowly opened his eyes, regaining consciousness from his battle. He looked around and saw that he was in a hidden area.

"You are finally awake." He heard, turning towards the voice. He saw Slifer sitting across from him. "So you managed to defeat Malefor I take it."

"I defeated the obstacle that was in my way." He responded.

"Are you sure that was all he was to you? You killed him strictly because of your goal, and not because you wanted revenge for what he did to you." Slifer said, trying to convince the dragon otherwise.

"No," Rai responded.

"So you are honestly going to tell me that you didn't want to prove anything by defeating him. You must have at least wanted to prove that you were finally strong. That you are no longer that weak dragon from two years ago."

"I only wanted to prove two things by defeating him." Rai said, sitting up. "I wanted to see if I was actually up to the task of defeating powerful dragons, which after this battle I no longer doubt that I am. The second thing was to show my team that I am someone that can get things done. After all if I plan on becoming the master of this world I have to show that I can take care of my subordinates."

"You know that since you have killed Malefor you will probably become one of their targets."

"That is exactly what I wanted. Maybe now they will see that I am a dragon that they should consider as a threat." Rai said.

"So what do you plan on doing now?" Slifer asked, raising an eye brow.

"Malefor said something to me before he died, something that caught my attention. He said that there was someone out there that also wanted to recreate this world. I do not know if that person has the same intentions as me, but if he does he could be a very powerful ally."

"What if he doesn't?"

"Then he is someone who opposes me, and that means that I will have to kill my own father."

"He told you about him?!" Slifer said, becoming surprised by the announcement.

"So you do know something about him." Rai said, standing up. He felt some pain travel through his body, but it was bearable. "Tell me who he is, and where he is located."

"I knew him long ago, he and I were rivals. You could say that I knew him better than he knew himself. Malefor said that he wanted to recreate the world. That is a lie. Your father does not want to do that. He plans on changing something that is impossible to change."

"Well what is it?"

"Why don't you ask him yourself?" Slifer said, standing up. "I do not know his location, but I do know how you can find him. Use Ares's green gem ability."

"Alright then it is time for me to take my leave." Rai said, opening his wings.

"There is one more thing you should know before leaving. Do not engage him in battle. I know how much you have grown over the past two years, but believe me when I say that you are no match for him. The he and I are equal in strength, and both possess the same rank. I know how you like starting fights with everyone, but if you challenge him then you will die."

"I'll keep that in mind." He said, exiting the area. He saw that Sypher, Ares, Gen, and Glacia were waiting for him outside of the area.

"Just because you defeated Malefor doesn't mean that I believe you should be the leader. I still say that I should be the one, but what you did was impressive. You made me see that you are serious about your motives. So I believe that you will help us complete ours as well." Gen said.

"I manage to gather some information from Malefor. He told me that his personal guard is still very much alive, but that they have all had their memory wiped. They do not remember anything about their time with Malefor, and to make matters worse they are scattered throughout the dragon cities."

"You mean finding them is impossible?" Gen asked.

"Yes," he said.

"Alright then, I guess we have nothing better to do than to follow you." Gen said.

"Alright then first off," Rai said, forming fire in his palm. "Ares I want you to analyze this flame. After that I want you to locate any dragon that has the same identical energy as me."

"Alright," She said, placing her hand in the flame to get a measure of its energy. She touched it for a second before pulling her hand back. "Alright besides you I am feeling two other dragons who share the same energy. One is over there and the other is in that direction." She said, pointing in separate directions.

"Alright so Warfang is over there so that must be Spyro. Then that means that the dragon that I want is southeast from here. Alright everyone let's move out."

* * *

Spyro and the others had made it back to Warfang, and were on their way to inform the Guardians of their mission. The seven dragons entered the room.

"How were the seven of you able to defeat Malefor?" Volteer asked.

"What?" The group said in unison.

"Malefor's energy disappeared a few hours ago. We assume that the seven of you defeated him even though we told you not to engage him." Cole explained.

"What were the seven of you thinking?" Terrador said, approaching the dragons. "He could have easily killed all of you."

"Which begs the question," Cyril said, interrupting Terrador. "How did you defeat him? The version of Malefor that you faced should have been much stronger from the last time you faced him. As strong as the seven of you are, I doubt that you could defeat him. Maybe pose a threat, but not defeat him."

"I can't believe he actually did it," Spyro whispered to himself.

"What was that, young dragon?" Ignitus said, catching Spyro's whisper.

"You should know that we were not the ones that defeated him." Spyro said.

"We were stopped from acquiring any information on Malefor by five extremely powerful dragons." Seth added.

"Even if they were able to defeat us I doubt that the five of them could have fared better against him." Blaze said.

"They attempted to kill us. We used to be his friends, and he refused to acknowledge us as that. " Cynder said.

"But he did say that he was going to go after Malefor." Blair added.

"After two years he turned into something like this?" Ember said.

"Could they have had really defeated Malefor?" Flame said.

"What five dragons are you talking about, young dragons?" Ignitus questioned.

"They may be in denial, but I have no doubt that he killed Malefor. He did it by himself as well; I doubt he used his team against Malefor." Spyro said, stepping forth.

"Who are you talking about?" Ignitus questioned.

"We met five dragons on our quest. Their names are Gen, Ares, Glacia, Sypher, and Rai. The four dragons I mentioned first had come in contact with Cynder and me two years ago. I don't know what happened, but they must have been holding back when I met them back then. There is no other explanation for why their powers increased so much. They claimed that three of them were at master class rank E, but the last two were above that. Rai and Sypher claimed that they were both at rank D the same rank as Malefor." Spyro said.

"Is this the same Rai that you told me about?" Ignitus questioned.

"Yes," he responded.

"That is impossible," Terrador said, stepping into the conversation. "Rai was nowhere near your level two years ago, and now you are claiming that he is a rank above you."

"Yes, they made us retreat, because they had critically injured two of our members. Sypher and Rai were both responsible for this. We didn't get to see Sypher in action that much, but Rai showed us some of his skills." Cynder said.

"From the looks of it he can now use the fire element, and his speed has increased exponentially. He also has the ability to manipulate fire. It bends to his will. Believe me when I say that it was him who defeated Malefor." Spyro explained.

"Ignitus you know who else possesses that ability. It would explain his rapid growth in power." Terrador said.

"I am well aware of whom, Terrador!" Ignitus said, screaming at the earth dragon. "The seven of you are dismissed."

All of the young dragons walked out except for Spyro who remained.

"What is it Spyro?" Ignitus asked.

"Can you look into Rai's book, and check that nothing bad will happen to him?" Spyro requested.

Ignitus saw that Spyro was truly worried about his brother. "All right then follow me young dragon." He said, taking the purple dragon towards the back of the room. There the two dragons stepped onto a pedestal. Ignitus used dragon time on the surrounding area, illuminating the room a blue color. The pedestal shook beneath the dragons' feet it began descending downward.

"The pedestal will only move in response to a dragon with the ability to use dragon time. I told Cyril if he could ask the moles if they could build this. By the time that the two of us returned to Warfang it was ready." Ignitus said. The pedestal came to a sudden stop.

"Where are we?" Spyro asked.

"Below the city," Ignitus responded stepping off of the pedestal. He began walking towards a large door at the end of the hallway. Spyro followed him to it. Upon arriving at the door Ignitus placed his paw on the door. Spyro saw that Ignitus was transferring his energy towards the door. It opened revealing a large whirlpool.

"What is this?" Spyro asked.

"Only a chronicler can access these types of doors. It analyzes the energy that is transferred to it, depending on whose energy it is the door opens. The whirlpool leads to where the books are kept. These doors were built at the start of the last era by the ancestors. The doors allowed the chronicler to visit every major dragon city, and caution them about their actions. After Malefor came to power the chronicler remained hidden so that he could not be captured." Ignitus said, stepping into the whirlpool with Spyro.

Spyro felt like his body was warming up, and becoming more liquid like. He saw a bunch of land formations flash rapidly in front of him. He was traveling towards White Isle where Ignitus, the current chronicler, had everyone's books. He felt his body cool down and solidify. He saw that something was slowly coming into focus. It appeared as if he was in the chronicler's room, turning around he saw that there was another door with a whirlpool in it.

"We are here," Ignitus said, grabbing a book from one of the countless bookshelves.

"What just happened?" Spyro asked, questioning about how he had travelled so far in such a short time.

"Every portal that is behind those types of doors takes any dragon that walks through it here. It uses an ancient type of ability that not even I am familiar with. I can only make an assumption that it has to with those divine abilities." Ignitus said, opening the book.

"Like my eyes, right?"

"Yes," he said, beginning to read the book. "Now let me investigate how Rai and those other dragons became so powerful. Wha...What is this?"

"What's wrong Ignitus?" The purple dragon asked.

"It seems that whoever he trained with was intent on keeping individuals from figuring out Rai's location. He was capable of covering up two years of Rai's life from his own book. This makes it impossible for us to view how he was able to progress so much. Now I am certain that it was him." Ignitus said, skipping ahead of the book.

"Ignitus why is Rai's book so short?" Spyro asked.

"I am afraid that the path Rai has chosen to live will lead him to a short life." Ignitus said, he had hoped that Spyro would not notice the book's length.

"But he can change that can't he?" Spyro said, rejecting that his brother would live such a short life.

"Spyro we live in a world where most things are predetermined for us. You, yourself are the greatest of examples. It was prophesized that a purple dragon would be born, one that would defeat the dark master. I am afraid that this is the reality of the situation."

"That can't be correct. How can everyone's lives be determined for them?"

"It is because many go on without questioning their meaning for existence. These creatures will continue to live their lives believing that they are actually in control of it. These are the ones that are blinded by the truth. The creatures who have become aware of the truth know that their life only goes from point a to point b. They fight their predetermined destiny, but most of the times they also fail. It is because they then begin to question their motives. They begin to believe that their own actions are not their own but destiny's. They eventually drive themselves into insanity."

"So that's it there is no way to fight it."

"Only extremely powerful dragons have the power to change the course of destiny. Malefor's second resurrection is a perfect example. When I looked at Malefor's prior to him returning it showed me that he would never escape from the crystal. The Judges are able to interfere like this because they are above our own realm. They live on an entirely different physical realm. Dragon's in our own realm are also able to live out a life that is not predetermined. You will not find their books in this library. That is because their books no longer exist. They have broken free from the chains of destiny."

"How is someone able to do that?" Spyro asked.

"They must either enforce or oppose the ones in control of our destiny." Ignitus replied.

"You mean the Judges?"

"They are a part of that system. In total there are three forces in charge of enforcing destiny. The Judges only enforce the final step, which is death. They are the ones who determine how someone dies. The other two I am not aware of, but I do know that they are held in greater authority than the Judges." Ignitus said.

"What about a purple dragon?"

"A purple dragon is able to change the course of destiny, because they are responsible for ushering in a new era. No one truly knows how new eras are ushered in. Thus you, specifically Spyro, are the perfect example of someone who was guided by destiny, but brought in the new era the way you wanted to. It is my belief that purple dragons have some control over destiny."

"So then what can you tell me about Rai's future?"

"Well I've been reading his book, and it seems that he did defeat Malefor. I also noticed that there is a page worth of blocked out information again. After that it appears that he…no he wouldn't?"

"Wouldn't what?"

"Then that must be how it ends for him." Ignitus said, closing Rai's book. "Spyro let us return to the temple."

Spyro stepped in front of Ignitus stopping his from advancing. "I want to know what you found in his book."

Ignitus saw that the purple dragon was not going to move without an explanation. "He is going to see a dragon that will ultimately end his life."

"Where is this dragon located?"

"From Warfang the dragon would be located southeast, hiding in a remote location." Ignitus said, watching as Spyro stepped away letting him pass.

"Can I go after him?"

"No, your task is to protect Warfang from any danger. That is the reason that you trained with me for two years; so that you could be this worlds protector. Not so that you could go on suicide missions."

"Alright then I understand." Spyro said, following the dragon back to Warfang. _I already lost someone I cared about, because I chose my duties over her. I will not let it happen again._


	11. The Blue

**Copyright: I do not own Spyro or anything Spyro related. It is all owned by Sierra Entertainment and Activision. I do own my original characters in the story.  
**

* * *

"How much farther?" Rai asked Ares.

"We're almost there just a little bit further." She replied.

"Is it just me, or does it feel like it is getting hotter?" Glacia asked.

"Just keep your complaining to yourself." Gen replied.

"She is right though. You cannot deny that the closer we get to our destination the hotter it gets." Sypher said.

"I guess, but we can just push through this heat." He replied.

"Look at the landscape." Sypher said, directing their attention towards the ground. "Just a couple seconds ago we were flying over a green field, and now we are flying over a hot barren wasteland. This event is not natural most likely it is being caused by some sort of outside force. If I had to guess I would say that a dragon is responsible for this.

"What kind of dragon is strong enough to cause change in nature?" Gen asked.

"Don't you remember what we learned from Slifer?" The multi colored eye dragon said.

"I must have not been listening." Gen replied.

"Strong enough dragons are able to naturally leak some of their elemental energy from their bodies. This causes certain abnormal events in nature to occur." He responded.

"We're here," Ares said.

"Let's head on down." Rai said, flying towards the ground with his team behind him.

The five dragons landed on the ground, looking around they saw that the area was filled with the carcasses of countless creatures. The skeletons ranged from apes to cheetahs, and they even saw dragon skeletons lying around the field. Upon further inspection they saw that the dirt beneath their paws was black. They looked back at the bones, and saw that all of the creatures' skins had been burned off. The black powder was a mixture of flesh and bone from the diseased creatures.

"Who could have defeated this many creatures?" Glacia asked.

"I'm guessing that it was that guy." Gen said, pointing towards a large dragon about the same size as one of the guardians.

The dragon was sitting on a pile of bones, looking down at them. He seemed to be about the age of an old adult dragon. He had blue scales, and a light blue underbelly. He had a horn sticking out on each side of his head, going up towards the side. The outer edges of his wings were blue while the inside was light blue. The dragon's tail was blunt. He got off of the pile of bones, and flew down towards the five dragons. He landed in front of the dragons. Rai saw that the dragon had blood red eyes, and that for some odd reason they had an orange hue around them.

"If you have been sent here by the Order then prepare to die, but if you have not then leave." The strange dragon said.

"Do you know who I am?" Rai said, stepping forth.

"No, I do not. Why should I even care who…" The dragon stopped mid-sentence, taking a closer look at Rai he saw something familiar. "You remind me of someone I knew a long time ago. It also appears as if I know you from somewhere, but I don't believe that we have ever met." He responded.

"I'm your son, Rai."

"Son? So I guess that those damn Guardians kept their promise to her after all." He said, looking down at Rai. "What do you want from me?"

"Well for starters your name and I want to know what has been going on here."

"My name is Solaris, and as for all the carcasses they asked for it. They were sent by the Order to kill me, because for a long time they have considered me a threat to their future plans."

"What do you mean they consider you a threat?" Rai asked.

"Whenever I witness something that I believe should be stopped, I intervene and eliminate it. They believe that they can control us, because they hold our fate in their hands. That is just an illusion that they have made us believe. Once you open your mind, and believe that you can truly change events in not only your life but in others, will they begin to consider you a threat."

"What did you do to make them see you as a threat?" Rai asked.

"I chose not to stop Malefor." He responded, "Because I and many others chose not to help defeat him, it delayed some of their plans. It also helped save many lives from some of the Order's most dangerous members."

"The Judges," Rai said, interrupting him.

"No, not even the Judges are above this group. They have been kept secret from many of this world's inhabitants. Only the significant few are aware of these secret members. Because we chose not to help they began considering our group as a threat. Those who continued to resist were eventually seen as a threat, and assassins were constantly sent after them. Once in a while they would try to bribe you into joining up with them. I refused on multiple occasions."

"So what do you do now?" Gen asked.

"I move from place to place trying to avoid my enemies, but in the end they always find me. You see they know that I am planning to destroy the entire Order. I will end this illusion that they call destiny, which they have forced onto the creatures of this world. I have been an observer for far too long, and it is almost time for me to act." He responded.

"So you plan on becoming the master of this world?" Rai asked, wanting him to clarify.

"No, I plan to eliminate all forms of leadership so that the creatures of this world can choose for themselves."

"Then that would make you my enemy father." Rai responded, taking his battle stance. "You see I plan to become the master of this world in order to rebuild it the way I see fit."

"I see you think the same way as Malefor did." Solaris responded.

"Malefor wanted to destroy this world and usher in a new era. I want to simply rebuild it. Our goals are not the same."

"No they are more alike than you think. He wanted to bring in a new era so that the new citizens would have the same ideology as him. You want to rebuild it, meaning that first you need to destroy it. By it I mean the creatures of this world. You have to destroy what they believe in so that you can place your own ideas on them."

"No that is not what I…" Rai stopped, feeling something on his shoulder. He saw that Sypher had placed his paw on him. "It doesn't matter what you say about my goal. In the end you will prove to be nothing more than an obstacle in my way. Even though you are my father in order to accomplish my goal I will have to kill you. So I will deal with you right now."

Rai jumped at Solaris, throwing a lightning punch at him. The dragon dodged, and cut Rai's tail with his teeth. He threw the grey dragon towards a pile of bone. He began slashing away at Rai's teammates. He sliced Ares's underbelly wide open. Blood began gushing out of the young dragoness. She fainted from the sight of seeing her underbelly torn open like that.

"You will pay for that!" Gen said, jumping at Solaris from behind.

The blue dragon sunk his claws into Gen's chest. "Next time don't make so much noise. You should have gone for the sneak attack when you had the chance." He said, taking his claws out of the lifeless dragon.

"I got you," Glacia said, piercing the dragon's chest with her tail blade.

"No," he said, fading away. "It is I who has you." He appeared behind her, stabbing her through the heart with his horns. He shook his head towards the side, sending her flying away.

"No, this can't be happening." Rai said, looking at the scene that was transpiring before his eyes. All his teammates where dying before his eyes. "Wait Sypher where are you." He said, looking desperately for his comrade. He saw a head roll in front of him. It was Sypher's.

"It is your turn son." Solaris said, rushing towards him.

_Why can't I move? What is this? I can't use any of my powers. I feel numb, and filled with emotions, emotions that I had long since abandoned. Especially the one feeling that I detested the most, helplessness. I should have realized it earlier. No wonder I didn't see Sypher get killed. He must have realized it before I did. Alright two can play this game. _Rai thought, closing his eyes in order to activate his ability.

He opened them, revealing that they now had a dark purple hue around them. The gory battle around him began to slowly fade away. The lifeless bodies of his friends also faded away. In their place he saw their living bodies, which were completely unharmed. He saw that the dragon had been sitting on top of the pile of bones were they had first seen him.

"You saw through it." The dragon said, landing in front of them. "Your teammate with the light blue scales saw through it a long time ago though. He was even able to escape from it before you did."

"You mean it was all an illusion?" Gen questioned.

"Yes, I have no idea when he did it though." Sypher replied.

"But if felt so real." Glacia responded.

"Listen what happened in that illusion was all manipulated by him. None of it represents his true abilities, meaning that he was only able to defeat us that quickly because he made it happen." Rai said.

"How can we fight an opponent that is able to put us in an illusion anytime he wants?" Ares questioned.

"It was when we looked at him. From this distance he could have easily put us in an illusion with his eyes. In the illusion I saw that his eyes were highlighted a strange color. It must be the same kind of eyes that I have." He said.

"You are correct Rai, but they are not the same as yours. They are greater." Solaris said.

"Everyone step back, and let me take care of this. I will test out his power, and if things get too difficult for me then get away from here. Sypher you are in charge of making sure that they get out of here alright." Rai said.

"Understood, but what will happen to you?" He asked, backing away from the dragon.

"Don't worry about me; I'll make it out of this alive." He said, jumping backwards. "Fire Element: True Giant Fire Ball." He said, releasing the attack towards Solaris.

"How boring," he said, lifting up his arm. He placed his paw in front of him, stopping the fire ball a couple of inches away from him. "This kind of fire is the worst possible type to use against me." He said, throwing it back at Rai.

"He can manipulate flames as well?" Rai said to himself.

Rai jumped in the air, and stopped the fire ball as well. He began rotating it with his arms. Once it was ready he threw it back at Solaris. The blue scaled dragon saw the attack coming, and stopped it in place again.

"Not yet," Rai said, "Fire Element: Fire Flame Bomb." The dragon released a concentrated fire object from his mouth. The object made contact with the giant fire ball, and exploded in a fearsome blast. The fire blast was directed towards Solaris, enveloping his body in flames. _Well what do you know? Malefor's attack came in handy. _

He looked at the destruction that his attack had caused. Fire was spreading across the field, but it was spreading towards a direction that it should have not. The fire was spreading towards him instead of away from him. In the middle of a fire he saw a dragon completely covered in flames approach him. Solaris was able to survive a fire attack of that kind of power and range. The flames were following the dragon's path.

"So you are also able to manipulate flames. It appears that you have inherited that ability from me, but I wonder which one of us has better mastery over this ability." He said, sending all the flames towards Rai. "I wonder if you will be able to control this much fire at once."

Rai flew up towards the sky, watching as the flames approached him. He opened up his wings to as far as he could, and then put out his arms in front of him. He stopped the flames from advancing, and instead of sending them back at his opponent, he decided to do something else. He spread the fire across the sky, directing the flames towards Solaris. "Fire Element: Fire Blitz." The multiple small flames began descending towards Solaris, increasing speed as they fell towards the ground.

Solaris managed to stop every single flame from hitting him. "It seems that you are able to manipulate the fire into a different attack now let me show you how I do it."

"I'm not done yet," Rai said. All the flames that Solaris had stopped around him exploded. The flames once again covered the field.

"Alright let me show you how it is done." Solaris said from within the fire. The fire covering the field began to turn from a yellow orange color to a blue one. The fire began moving towards Solaris, encircling the dragon. "Fire Element, Blue Flame Style: Willow Wisp." He opened up his wings, sending a shockwave of blue flame across the sky and field.

Rai saw the attack coming, and tried to stop the fire from burning his teammates and himself. He stretched out his paws in order to manipulate the blue flame. It was not moving the way he wanted it to. He could not even get it to stop.

_It's just like with the convexity fire._ He thought to himself, as the blue fire traveled through his body.

"Get ready here comes the fire." Sypher said, warning the others.

The blue flame passed through Sypher and the others. Rai was surprised to find out that the fire had not brought him any pain. He also saw that the field was not covered in fire, but he expected that. Since the flames had traveled through the air and not on the ground. He figured that an attack like that would have been very powerful.

"I will give you one last warning Rai leave now, and I will not harm any of you." Solaris said.

"That attack of yours must have been some kind of dud, because it didn't do anything to us. It was probably a fake, explaining why I couldn't control the flames." He said, landing on the ground.

"No the reason why you couldn't control my flames is because they are a unique type. Flames that only I can produce." He said.

"Yea right what's so unique about this…ahh." Rai's body suddenly erupted in blue flames. He heard screaming from his teammates as well. The flames lasted for a couple of seconds before extinguishing. "What the hell was that?" He asked, recovering from the attack. His scales had been burned, but it was not fatal.

"My willow wisp attack burns the target for a short amount of time at random time intervals. Now you asked what is so unique about my flames, well what you are experiencing should be a hint to my ability."

"What the hell is that supposed to…" Rai's body became engulfed in blue flames again. He struggled maintaining his stance. "It seems that they also increase in heat."

"It doubles each time." Solaris responded.

"If only I was at full strength then I would be able to compete against you. I'm still injured from my fight with Malefor."

"So it was you who defeated Malefor. You should not have killed him that was exactly what they wanted you to do." Solaris said.

"What do you mean?" Rai said, struggling to believe what he had been told.

"Goodbye son," he said, stretching out his arm in front of him. "Fire Element, Blue Flame Style: Flame Wild Spread." He said forming a single blue flame in his paw. He threw it towards Rai.

"I'll just block that attack with…aaaahhhh." He screamed out in pain as his body was engulfed by the flames again. The heat from the flames caused the dragon to lose his focus.

A dragon landed in front of Rai. "Earth Element: Layered Stone Wall." The ground beneath their feet rose several feet up in the air. It morphed into a wall of stone that stretched out across the field. "Ice Element: Multiple Layered Ice." The dragon blew ice on the wall freezing the large wall. He began layering more ice on the already frozen wall.

The small blue flame made contact with the frozen stone wall. The flame erupted, sending out a shockwave of blue flames across the ice wall. The flames covered the entire opposite side that Rai was on. The heat from the blue flames began to melt the ice and stone as well. Blue flames were hastily making their way towards Rai and the mysterious dragon. Rai regained his focus; looking at the dragon in front of him he saw that it was Spyro.


	12. The Blue 2

**Copyright: I do not own Spyro or anything Spyro related. It is all owned by Sierra Entertainment and Activision. I do own my original characters in the story.  
**

* * *

"It looks like I made it in time. Now we have to get away from those flames." Spyro said.

"What are you doing here?" Rai asked, backing away from the blue flames with Spyro.

"I came here to help you out." Spyro said, turning towards Rai. "I found out that you were going to be in trouble, so I came here as fast as I could."

"Right I bet that you did it on the Guardians' order. They probably found out that I defeated Malefor, and they sent you to stop me from causing any more trouble."

"No, I came here of my own free will, I even disobeyed orders in order to do what I thought was right." Spyro replied. _When Cynder ran away I didn't go after her because the Guardians did not let me. As a result I almost lost her. I left for two years because I was ordered to. I could have stayed in Warfang if I had just said no, but I didn't do it. I believed that because I was the purple dragon that I had to be more obedient than others. Leaving for two years caused me Cynder's love. I will not lose my brother just because they ordered me not to help him._

"That isn't like you Spyro. You always follow orders absolute. I like this change in you." Rai said, smiling.

"Don't get the wrong idea. I haven't become as rebellious as you, but I will no longer follow orders that go against in what I believe. So are you going to give me any information on this guy?"

"Sure, first off you should know that this guy is our father."

"He's what?" Spyro asked stunned by what he had just been told.

"Yea, that guy is our father. As you can see he is pretty strong. That blue fire of his is pretty strong."

"Well it looks like someone else has joined this battle." Solaris said, walking into the blue flames. "And what do you know it's the legendary purple dragon. Hmmm, what is this? The two of you look almost exactly alike except for the color of your scales, and the fact that Rai has more spikes on his head. So both of my children survived, and both were born as legendary dragons."

"How do you know?" Rai asked.

"I never knew the last celestial dragon, but I was told of what he looked like and what he could do. Those grey scales fit the description exactly." Solaris said.

"Rai you're a legendary dragon?" Spyro questioned.

"Spyro I already said this; you are my enemy so I won't tell you anything. Besides we have a bigger problem right now. We have to defeat this guy."

"Alright then," Spyro said, shifting his focus to Solaris. "If you are our father then why are you attempting to kill us?"

"Rai chose to fight with me because he saw me as an obstacle. It's sad that both of you are being controlled like puppets by higher forces."

"I'll show you what this so called puppet can…aaahhh." Rai screamed as his body was once again enveloped by blue flame. He looked towards his teammates, and saw that they were also covered in flames. He guessed that they could only take two more before the pain became critical. "Sypher as much as it might tempt you to use your element don't. Use it as a last resort if I can't stop it after two more burns use it on the third."

"Rai you are in no condition to fight. That attack he put on you looks quite troublesome. I will take him on alone." Spyro said.

"Don't be foolish, I'm a rank above you, and look what happened to me. You don't stand a chance against him." Rai said.

"Maybe not but," Spyro said, activating his divine eyes ability. "If I can figure out how his attacks work I might able to come up with a way to stop his fire from burning you guys." He said, opening his mouth. "Fire Element: Burning Cross." Spyro blew out fire that took the shape of a giant burning X.

"So you also possess those eyes." He said, examining the dragon's eyes. "Sorry that won't work against me." Solaris said, stopping the fire cross from advancing towards him.

"He can manipulate fire just like you?" Spyro said, asking Rai.

"I guess I forgot to mention that."

"Here I'll send this attack back at you with my type of flame." Solaris said, changing the attack's attributes to resemble his own. He whipped his tail forward, sending the blue fire cross towards Spyro and Rai.

Rai dodged to the right, crashing into a pile of bones. Spyro jumped towards the left the attack managed to make contact with his left hind leg. Spyro let out a grunt from the pain that he received from the attack. He looked at his hind leg, and saw that it had burned all the way through. His scales had been mostly burned away. He looked over towards Rai, and saw that his injury matched up with that of Rai's.

"When I first arrived here Rai had less severe burns. After he was enveloped by the blue flames he came out looking like that. By the way that Rai spoke about the flames it seems that they have been increasing in heat and intensity." Spyro said, talking silently to himself. "Could that mean that as time passes by the more intense and hotter his flames get."

"Are you still alive?" Solaris asked, growing impatient.

Spyro got up on his three healthy legs. That last attack had immobilized his left hind leg. _If he is able to increase his base flame heat as time goes on then I have to stop him as soon as I can. I'm sure that he is still able to increase the heat of his flames by other means. Just like any fire dragon can increase it by putting more fire energy into an attack, I am sure that he is able to do that as well. _"All right then it looks like I am going to have to use that attack." He said, concentrating on the field around him. A large blue dome released from around Spyro it covered most of the area around them. "Dragon Time."

Spyro looked around, and saw that everything was in slow motion. Even though he had his divine eyes he could tell that things were physically slowed down, and that he was not just seeing them move slower. He dug his claws into the ground, and began moving the rocky ground around. He began separating the field in front of him into squares, and stretching them out of the ground. In a squared form the landscape moved towards the direction that Spyro was commanding them, and that was towards his father.

"Earth Element: Ground Collision." He said, manipulating several squared rock columns to move towards Solaris. The ground on the right and left side of Solaris had lifted up revealing that they had been transformed into square earth columns. Spyro slid his front paws towards each other until they hit each other. The two square columns mimicked this, moving towards each other quickly. The two square columns, coming out of the ground, were going to pulverize Solaris. The two came into contact with each other, breaking from the force of colliding against each other.

"Not bad," Solaris said, flying above the collision.

Spyro saw that Solaris was flying normally as if dragon time was not even active.

"That earth attack is very advanced I see that you are in the master class. You were also able to use dragon time before that. I bet that you are surprised that I am able to move, and talk normally. Dragon time slows the opponent down, and it did just that."

"Then how did you avoid that attack."

"My speed alone helped me avoid that attack, but I needed something else to see were your attack was going to come from. I'm sure by now you have noticed that since you arrived my eyes have been highlighted dark purple. Well that is because I also possess the divinity eyes."

"I knew it." Rai said, listening to the two from the ground. "That is how he was able to trap us in that illusion, but it doesn't explain why they were colored different at first glimpse."

"Now it is my turn to go on the offensive." He said, flying towards Spyro. Even though Spyro had dragon time activated, Solaris was still able to punch the dragon on his snout. Spyro was sent flying downward towards the ground, crashing into it.

"If it weren't for these eyes I would have missed that completely," Rai said. "Even with dragon time active he still moved at a speed in which Spyro could not dodge his punch. It looks like dragon time is deactivating." He said, noticing that the blue field that they were incased was disappearing. He flew over towards where Spyro had landed.

"Even with dragon time and divinity eyes activated, I couldn't dodge that punch." He said, standing back up. He felt something liquid on his face. The dragon brought up a paw to his snout. He brushed his paw against his snout, and saw that the liquid was blood. He was bleeding from his nose.

"I hope that you now have an idea of just how powerful he is. I believe that if we…ahhhh." Rai screamed out in pain again as the blue flame engulfed his body. Spyro looked at him, and saw that the fire had begun to burn his muscles. It was only a matter of time before it began burning his internal organs.

"Rai, you need to take it easy. That fire is slowly killing you." Spyro said.

"Shut up, don't you think I know that?" He said, staring at him furiously.

"Well it looks like it is time for me to end this." He said, closing his eyes. "I will finish you off with this, Divine Eyes Ruin, Unforgiven Mode." He opened his eyes, revealing that they were now highlighted a bright orange color while his red iris had darkened.

"There is another form?" They both said in unison.

"Yes, judging by your eyes the two of you still have to go through one more stage before reaching this one. This stage is the final form that you can obtain. Now let me show you two the powers that this ability grants me." He said, closing both his eyes.

"Spyro don't look him in the eyes!" Rai said.

"Who said that I needed eye contact for this attack, Divine Eyes Ruin, Unforgiven Mode: Banned." Solaris said, opening his left eye. "The elements that the two of you have used during this battle are as follows: earth, fire, lightning and ice. As long as this technique is activated you will not be able to use those elements." He said, smiling at them.

"We will see about that." Rai said, pointing his paw towards Solaris. "Fire Element: Fire Ball." Nothing came out of his paw. "What did you do?"

"With my normal divine eyes I saw you use different elements, and this ability bans you from using those elements." Solaris stated.

"Alright then take this." He said, lifting up his claws towards the sky. "Shadow Element: Hidden Shadow Point Strike." The countless shadows from the blue fire shifted into sharp points. They rose from the ground and moved towards Solaris.

"Ban shadow element," Solaris said. The shadows that were about to pierce the dragon disappeared, and returned back to their normal shape among the fire. "Did I forget to mention that I can also add to the ban list?"

"Then we can only fight him without using our elements, but in order to defeat someone like him we need our elements." Spyro said.

"Good bye my sons," he said, placing his paw in front of them.

A large dragon landed behind Solaris, interrupting his task.

"Took you long enough, I was beginning to wonder if you were going to show up or not. Spyro dying would be against the plan, wouldn't it? It has been such a long time," Solaris said, refusing to turn around to acknowledge the dragon. "Has it not teacher, or do you prefer Chronicler Ignitus."


	13. Teacher and Students

**Copyright: I do not own Spyro or anything Spyro related. It is all owned by Sierra Entertainment and Activision. I do own my original characters in the story.  
**

* * *

"You are not my student anymore Solaris." Ignitus said.

"Right after that event you exiled me from Warfang." He said, turning around hastily. His tail smacked against Spyro and Rai, sending them skidding across the ground.

"Let them go they did not know who they were going up against. Someone like you who will take anyone's life in order to progress in life needs to be put down by the creature that created you."

"Referring to me as monster now?" Solaris said, walking towards Ignitus. "What makes you so sure that you can put me down Ignitus, or are you going to send them after me? They will do no better than those two dragons over there." He said, referring to Spyro and Rai.

"Alright then I will take you on." Ignitus said, getting into his battle stance.

A huge fire erupted from the side of Ignitus. Out of the fire a cloaked dragon, with the mark of the fire element on his right paw, began walking out of it. He looked at the two dragons before saying anything.

"It has been twenty years since the three of us were all together like this." Solaris said.

"Yes, and I hate all of you." He said, removing his cloak all together. The dragon had red scales, and a bright blue underbelly. He had three light blue horns two coming out of the side of his head and the other at the top. All three were directed towards the back of his head. His tail was blunt and colored light blue. The outer edges of his wings were red while the membrane was blue. His eyes were sapphire colored.

"Well what do you know Ignitus; it seems that your two protégés are before you again. The greatest fire dragons of all time, Quantum Flare Slifer and Eternal Flame Solaris." He said.

"No now the two of you are a disgrace to dragons everywhere." Ignitus said.

"Slifer what are you doing here." Rai said from across the field.

"Ignitus you came as well." Spyro said.

"I told you Rai that he was going to be an opponent that was to advance for you at the moment. Now I have to defeat him." Slifer said, smiling at Solaris.

"You disobeyed me young dragon, but for the moment I will let it slip since it was for a noteworthy cause." Ignitus replied.

"Let me tell you about his abilities Slifer…aaaahhhh." Rai said, getting interrupted from the pain of the fire engulfing him.

"I see so you have already put that attack on him, and his team as well." Slifer said, noticing that Rai and his team were engulfed in blue flame. "Solar Element: Cleansing Sun Flash," he said, pointing his claw towards Rai. A white light burst out of his claw enveloping Rai in it. "And now for your teammates." A wider light shot out of his claw enveloping the four dragons. "There my ability wipes away all continuous attacks like the willow wisp. It removes the core fire from your body, and places it around the field. It has now merged with the current blue fire around the field."

"Thank you Slifer for showing me your element." Slifer said, smiling.

"Go ahead ban it, you did it in our last battle, and I was still able to keep up with you. Remember how boring it got after I began using my ability." Slifer said, activating his divine eyes, now both his eyes were highlighted dark purple, "Do you need a reminder?"

"The only one who can match me in strength, power, and abilities is you." Solaris said.

"Fire Element:," Ignitus said, forming a fire ring around the two dragons.

"Ban Fire Element," Solaris said, restricting Ignitus from using his fire element.

"Using an attack that is filled with blood and sin, you have truly fallen. Both of you have. You used to be my students, dragons born with exceptional elemental abilities. One was granted an abnormal element. It was a divine element the ability to conjure blue flames. The other was given the highest level of an element in the fire category. He received third stage fire the solar element. The ability to conjure up the power of the stars, and yet you used it to bring pain onto this world."

"I no longer use it for that; I have abandoned the dragons of this world. They are sinful and weak. I now use my element to set dragons on the right path. Most recently Rai," Slifer said.

"I use my ability to fight against the very dragons that have oppressed us. I will make sure that they no longer have any control over this world." Solaris answered.

"Well it looks like that is one thing that we are in agreement with."

"Yes, but you joined their ranks." Solaris said.

"In order to change things from the inside, because I believe that that is the best method to use. Rai, I hope that you are paying attention to this, because I am about to reveal your father's abilities to you." Slifer said.

"Go ahead tell him, and I will also show him something interesting." Solaris said.

"The blue fire that he is able to produce is eternal it never extinguishes. That is why this area is burned to the ground. I'm sure that you have noticed by now that the heat of his attacks increase as the fight goes on. That is a trick he uses, he is always at full power. He can change the heat in order to fight against an opponent on equal terms. His max heat is the same as mine. The temperature of our attacks is the highest of any fire dragon. Lava element dragons' temperature is like ice compared to ours."

"There is no way that a dragon can produce that kind of heat." Spyro said.

"The final thing concerns everyone that can use divine eyes ruin. After reaching the third stage, which the two of you are in, there are still two more stages. In order to reach these stages you must let go of all emotions that hold you back. In return you will get power that outclasses anything else. In order to reach the first stage you must reach a deep understanding about yourself. You must realize and accept the truth that you have shunned and ignored the most. Once you do your eyes will now be highlighted by your own eye color. This will signal that you have done what is necessary to reach the next level. The ability that you get ranges from physical to mental."

"Is there any way of telling what ability you will gain beforehand?" Rai asked.

"It takes the form of what you desire most. Now using the ability numerous times will cause deterioration in your elemental powers, and cut your life span in half each time you use it. This is what normally pushes dragon to commit the unforgivable sin that is associated with this power. If you wish to regain the life and power that you have lost, then you must commit the following act. Kill other dragons, and by using your divine power absorb their souls. The souls will replenish your lost energy and life. This is only a temporary way of dealing with the side effect. The permanent way is to find another dragon that has the ruin version of the divine eyes, and is also in the fourth stage. If you manage to find and kill said dragon, upon absorbing their soul your eyes will then be highlighted in their eye color, and your iris will darken in color. You receive the perfected version of their ability, and yours also becomes perfect. You also will never again have to worry about shortening of your life or loss of your powers." Slifer said.

"Now it is my turn." Solaris said, flying towards Spyro and Rai. He appeared before the two of them with his eyes closed. "Divine Eyes Ruin, Unforgiven Mode: Eclipse." He said, opening his right eye. Spyro and Rai both looked into it, and instantly dropped to the ground.

"Why did you use that on them?" Slifer said.

"I have my reasons." He said, opening up his wings. "I have no intentions in fighting the two you. If you wish to fight me then it will have to wait another day. Slifer, I don't know how much time you have left to change things from the inside, but you better hurry because sooner or later you will be forced to do his bidding." He said, flying off.

"That is why I am doing my best to prepare your son for the worst. Hopefully in the end he will be strong enough to stop me." Slifer said to himself.

"The ability that he just used on Spyro and Rai is it the one from before?" Ignitus questioned.

"Yes, it is the one from back then." Slifer responded.

"Why would he use that on them? It will drive them insane."

"If they are not mentally strong enough it will."

"How is an illusion able to do that?" Ignitus asked.

"I am not giving you hints on how Solaris's attack works. You chose to exile us and as such we no longer exist to you." Slifer said, walking over towards Rai, putting the dragon on his back. "It isn't just an illusion, it is the ultimate one." He said walking over towards Rai's teammates.

"The two of them are as strong as ever especially with those eyes. I hope that you don't make the same mistake young dragon." Ignitus said, walking over towards Spyro. He put the dragon on his back, and flew off towards Warfang.

* * *

**(A/N): Alright, the next two story arcs will have more information on the true antagonists of this story. They will also help structure the over all plot a lot better, and give a glimpse of where this story is headed. Some points will also begin to connect in the following story arcs. So stay tuned, and I hope that you have enjoyed the story up until now.  
**


	14. Nightmares

**Copyright: I do not own Spyro or anything Spyro related. It is all owned by Sierra Entertainment and Activision. I do own my original characters in the story.  
**

* * *

"What is this place?" Rai asked walking around a secluded room. "And why am I younger?"

"It looks we are stuck here doing nothing again Rai."

_No! That voice, there is no way that it can be her._ He thought to himself, turning around towards the sound of the voice.

"Why do you look so shocked Rai?" Cynder said.

_Just as I feared she is just as young as I am, which means that we are both in that place again._ "Cynder, I don't have time to explain, but we have to get out of here." He said, running towards the rooms exit.

"What's gotten into you Rai, you know that we are forbidden to leave this room without Malefor." She said.

"I know but listen to me you are in danger, and I can't let that happen to you again."

"Rai what are you talking about?"

The door opened, revealing Malefor on the other side. He stepped in, and looked at the two dragons with a devious smile on his face. "Well, well one of you has gotten very lucky. Cynder come along with me. I will be performing some tests on you."

"No, I am not going." She said, hiding behind Rai. "Please protect me Rai."

_This is playing out just as I had imagined it once before. Where am I? What is this? How did I get back here? Why this memory? Why not the real one? _"I guess I don't have much of a choice" He said, running towards Malefor. "You can't have her." He said, opening his mouth for an attack, but nothing came out. "What why isn't it working? I can't use any of my elements."

"Look he actually thinks that he can stop me." Malefor said, punching Rai in the gut. "Let me show you the difference between an insect and a purple dragon." Malefor began hitting Rai continuously. He threw him against the wall. The grey dragon was bloodied and bruised. "The reason that I am choosing her instead of you is because she has potential. She is stronger than you, and I have no use for weaklings in my army. Farewell weakling." He said, preparing to deal the final blow.

"Stop it! I'll come with you just don't kill him." Cynder said, with tears streaming down her face.

"Alright then let's go." He said, walking towards the exit with Cynder.

"Cyn…Cynder," Rai said, lifting up his arm towards her. His vision was getting blurry, and he was beginning to pass out. _It happened again I couldn't save her. I just stayed here bloodied and beaten. I passed out after this, and then I awoke in a cage. No there has to be more that I can do. I refuse to give up. _He said, passing out.

"Giver her back to me!" Rai said, jumping to his paws. "You can't take her away from me." He opened his mouth, releasing lightning unintentionally. The lightning stream hit Malefor dead center just as he had turned around. The lighting travelled through him, damaging the purple dragon.

"What the hell is this?" He said, looking at Rai. The grey dragon was panting heavily, struggling just to maintain his stance. "It seems that you might have potential after all."

"I…will…protect her," he said, passing out on the ground.

"Well it looks like I actually have a reason to let you live after all." Malefor said.

Rai was surrounded by darkness.

_I never remembered that part. I must have blocked it out._ He thought to himself.

The darkness disappeared, and revealed the same room again.

"Hey Rai." Cynder said.

_Wait again, then this has to be. That's right I was fighting my father, Solaris. He came up to me and Spyro, and made us look into his eyes. This has to be an illusion. Alright then now that I know I should be able to end it. Why isn't it working? Being aware should be enough. The saddest part is that he chose to trap me in the lie instead in the truth. That is what hurts the most.  
_

* * *

"How did I get back to Warfang?" Spyro asked, walking through the streets of the city. "Wasn't I in a fight? Wait what is that?" He said, running over towards figure that was on the ground.

As he got closer he noticed that it belonged to Flame. He saw that the dragon was horribly injured; it appeared that he had been in some sort of fight. He lifted the dragon off the ground, and held him in his paws. The young dragon began to regain consciousness. He looked at Spyro with a lifeless expression.

"What happened Flame?" Spyro asked.

"It all happened so fast…we never expected it…what caused him to do it." Flame said, dying in Spyro's arms.

"Wake up Flame, come on Flame! Don't go Flame!" Spyro said, crying over his friend's death.

Warfang began to change. The once glorious city turned into a ruined one. All of the city's buildings had been destroyed, and the citizens were buried under the rubble. The sky itself changed from a sky blue color to a dark red one. Spyro gazed upon the massacre that had transpired. He began running throughout the city, hoping to find any survivors. It was then that he began hearing voices off in the distance. He ran to them, hoping that someone would be able to tell him what happened. He arrived at the location were the voice was coming from; looking around he found three dragons.

"He killed all of them." Blaze said.

"Not even the Guardians were a match for him." Blair said.

"He killed everyone in this city. We are the only three who survived his rampage." Cynder said.

"I'm glad to see that you guys are still alive." Spyro said, stepping towards them. "What happened here? Who did this to the city?"

"A monster did this one that has no regard for life." Cynder said, turning around to face Spyro. "They use to call him The Legendary Purple Dragon, but now he is just a monster who let his emotions get the better of him."

"I did this?" Spyro said in confusion.

"You couldn't control it, and it consumed you." Blaze said, jumping towards Spyro. "You did what Malefor could not. You turned this world into hell."

"I must admit that I quite enjoyed myself." Spyro said, stabbing his claws into Blaze's chest. _What the hell am I doing? I can't control my body._

Blaze's dead body collapsed on the ground.

"No, Blaze," Blair said, running towards him.

"You're next," Spyro said, cutting Blair's throat. _Why can't I stop myself? What the hell is going on here? Blaze and now Blair, why am I killing my friends?_ Spyro thought, watching Blair's neck spray blood across the field. Her body fell towards the ground.

"I can't believe that at one point I loved a monster like you." Cynder said, attacking Spyro.

"And I can't believe that at one time I actually had feelings for the Terror of The Skies." Spyro said, dodging Cynder's attack. "Don't worry it will all soon be over." He said, wrapping his paw around her neck. _No! Not Cynder, Why can't I stop this?_

"Please…Spyro stop this…you are not a monster." She said, feeling the life leave her.

"No Cynder you are wrong. I am a monster, one that the Guardians made." He said, crushing her throat. He threw her body across the field. "Because I always followed their orders, I never had the chance to stop and see what I was doing." The world around Spyro darkened.

_It was all an illusion, but it just seemed too real. All of this happened just because I followed their orders? I became a monster because of them and their stupid orders. Now I know that what I was beginning to fear it true. I have to change things for the better._ He thought to himself as the world lightened up, revealing that he was still in the same place.

"I should have gotten out of it once I realized that it was an illusion. What is going on?" He said, hearing a cry for help out in the distance. _Not again, I'm still trapped in the same one._

"No! Not again." Spyro said, jumping out of his bed. He landed on the hard cement floor.

"Calm down young dragon." Ignitus said, sitting beside Spyro's bed.

"Where am I? Is this another illusion?" Spyro said, shaking with fear.

"No, Spyro I assure you that this is the real world." He said.

"How do you know? You could just be another illusion." He said, backing away from Ignitus.

"Spyro I need you to get a hold of yourself. Gather your thoughts, and try to remember the illusion that you were trapped in. If you can do that then you should be able to realize that this is the real world."

Spyro stopped, deciding to listen to Ignitus he took a moment to gather his thoughts. The place where he currently was in was different from the previous world. He heard the voices of other dragons throughout the temple, and he also heard their voices coming from the outside. Even Ignitus, a dragon that was dead in the last world he was in, was alive. It began dawning on him that he was back in the real world. He let out a sigh of relief, signifying that he felt safe.

"It was horrible Ignitus in that world I killed everyone. I brought the end of the world. It all felt so real. I began to believe that the illusion was reality, and that this world was the illusion. As much as I wanted to stop myself from killing, I could not command my body to do so. Even though it was only a day the illusion almost broke me." Spyro said, getting off the ground.

"Spyro, it has been a week since you fought against your father." Ignitus said.

"What?" Spyro said stunned from the news. "That can't be true it only felt like a day. What kind of attack has the ability to not only make an illusion seem real, but to also control your perception of time within the illusion as well?"

"That attack has never been used on me, but I have talked to someone who has. The ability can cast an extremely powerful illusion on the victim. It makes everything that happens to the individual within the illusion seem real. It does not have the power to kill, but it can easily render the opponent unconscious during a fight. The most dangerous thing about it is that usually the dragon that is caught up in the attack goes insane. It is because they no longer believe that this world is real. They end up killing themselves, believing that it is the only way back to the world they consider real." Ignitus said.

"What happened to him Ignitus? Why did my father become like that?"

"You will have to ask him that yourself if you ever meet him again. I do not know why he became like that. I do not know why both of them follow the paths that they do now. Come with me Spyro there is much that you have to catch up on." He said, leading Spyro out of the infirmary wing, and up to the Guardian's meeting room.

Spyro entered and saw that his group was there waiting for him. He also saw that two green scaled dragons were sitting next to the Guardians. Both were about the same age as him, and the rest of the dragons in his group.

"Spyro finally woke up now we can help you out with your request." Ignitus said, taking his place in the middle of the room.

"Long time no see Spyro." The larger green dragon said. "It seems that you do not remember us. My name is Brox, and this is my younger brother Greg."

"Hello Spyro," Greg said. "We met two years ago, because of you and Cynder we were able to find the Guardians. And thanks to them they gave us directions to a dragon city that focused on earth dragons."

"Yea, I remember you guys. You helped me and Cynder when we were in danger. If you're requesting our assistance then I will have no trouble granting that." Spyro said.

"Are you sure that you are ready Spyro? I heard that you fought against a powerful dragon." Flame said.

"Yea, I'm ready for whatever their request is. I didn't receive that many injuries, and by now they have already healed."

"Could you please go over the details of your request?" Terrador said.

"We have been ordered by the leader of our city to rescue one of the dragons from our city. They were taken by a group of dragons that want to take over our city. They have been attacking our city for several months now, and this time they have gone too far."

"Who are we rescuing?" Seth asked.

"It is our leader's daughter." Brox said.

"Our task is to both recue his daughter, and make sure that these dragons stop attacking our city. We know the location of their hideout so finding them should not prove to be too difficult." Greg said.

"How long have they kept her prisoner?" Spyro asked.

"Almost two weeks now." Greg responded.

"We came here a week ago seeking help, but after finding out that you were not here we had to put it on hold. The dragons that we will be facing are extremely capable fighters. That is why we came to Warfang for help, because they are known for having capable fighters." Brox said.

"I am sorry for making you wait." Spyro said, knowing that his actions had delayed in their rescue attempt. "I'll make sure that we fulfill your request."

"Do you know the type of opponents that we will be facing?" Cynder asked.

"We believe that they are all in the master class, but do not know how high up in rank they are. I assume that they should be opponents that we can defeat, considering that they have not been able to take the city by force. My brother and I are also capable fighters. I am ranked F and my brother is ranked F as well." Brox said.

"Alright then we better not waste any more time. Can the two of you lead us towards their hideout?" Spyro asked.

"Yes," Brox said, flying out of the room.

"Spyro is everything alright?" Cynder asked, noticing that something seemed wrong with Spyro.

"Yea everything is alright Cynder, I'm just feeling a little worn out from what happened a week ago." He said.

"Who did you go and fight?"

"It was my father, and I found out that he has actually done some horrible things. When I met up with him we got in a fight and he almost killed me. If it wasn't for Ignitus showing up I probably would have been dead. He put me in some kind of illusion that made me believe that I was part of this horrible world." He said, looking away from her. "In that world I did things that I could not stop myself from doing."

"Spyro, you know that you can still talk to me about anything right?" She said, using her tail blade to turn Spyro's head back around towards her. "Even though I am with Seth, you can still tell me all your problems and I will do my best to fix them." She said, smiling at him.

"Thank you Cynder." He said, smiling back at her.

* * *

Rai slowly opened his eyes. The illusion that he was in had finally subsided. He looked around, and saw that he was in some sort of cave. Slifer was sitting next to him, and his group was resting near the exit of the cave.

"What happened to me? Is this real or am I still reliving that damn moment?" Rai asked, standing up on all four paws.

"I see it was that type." Slifer said, standing up. "You are back in the present Rai, and I can assure you that the illusion has disappeared."

"How can I trust you? You could just be another illusion that is trying to convince me that I am out of the illusion." Rai said.

"He is telling the truth Rai." Sypher said, walking towards him with the rest of the group.

"Prove it, prove to me that I am back in reality." Rai said.

"I cannot prove that to you. Someone as strong minded as you should be able to tell the difference. If you cannot tell the difference then I have obviously wasted my time being a part of your group." Sypher said.

"Always straight to the point," Rai said, smiling. "I now that I am in the real world. This feeling I get whenever I am around you guys is one that cannot be copied or reproduced."

"It took less time to convince you then I thought it would. Alright it is time that I explain that ability. The ability in his left eye is the attack that belonged to his brother. The one in his right eye is his. This attack casts an illusion on the user so powerful that they believe that they are in a different world. It has the power to cause dragons to go crazy. Sometimes dragons kill themselves believing that they are still in the illusion. The world created will either be based upon your memories or draw upon your fears. Sometimes it is both. Now this is what he uses when he doesn't want to deal with his opponent. It is the weakest kind he can trap you in."

"He has several of them?" Rai asked.

"Yes, the one I just mentioned is the weakest because as soon as he traps you in it he leaves you alone. In other words he no longer has any influence over you. Because of this any sudden shock or pain from an outside source will break the hold over you. I did not use pain to get you out of the illusion, because I wanted you to experience what it was like to be in it. The second type that he can trap you under requires him to maintain eye contact with you the entire time. In the illusion he will be torturing you for some time, and you have no choice but to take it. The pain will feel not only real, but unbelievably painful. Even though physical pain is being administered to you, the mental pain takes a toll on your body. When he is done the victim usually passes out from the pain they received while under the illusion. As you can see this is quite dangerous, but it is a double edge sword for him as well. He cannot move while doing this illusion. Although he still possesses one great advantage, which is the ability to manipulate his victim's perception of time."

"What do you mean by that?" Rai asked.

"Tell me how long do you believe to have been under the illusion?" Slifer asked.

"About a day," he replied.

"You were under it for a week. He can control your perception of time for the first two types. He can make it seem longer or shorter than it actually is. The only way to get out of the illusion is by breaking eye contact with him. If an object would get in between his line of sight it would automatically end the illusion. The third type is the most dangerous because he only needs to make eye contact once. He will then be able to create different illusions while you are fighting against him. There is no escaping this illusion while you are in it. Your teammates cannot get you out of it. The only way out is to overpower this illusion, and break it with sheer power. It will be your illusion skills against his." Slifer said.

"How do you know about this?" Rai asked.

"I know how to counter all of his moves, and he knows how to counter all of mine. We used to be rivals a long time ago. We were both taught by the same teacher, and we constantly competed to see which one of us was the best. He has trapped me in all three of those illusions several times. I developed ways of getting out of those illusions, but that was all before he took another dragon's powers. The ability in his left eye belonged to the other dragon. It bans a dragon from using their element in a battle. As long as the ability was active a dragon could not use their element. As you know when he took that dragon's power all of his divine eye abilities became perfected." Slifer said.

"Yea that's what happened to me and Spyro, but he was able to ban more than one of our elements. Were you going to tell me that that was his perfected ability?" Rai said.

"Well that is something that I did not know. Now what I am going to tell you is that before he took the other dragon's soul the ability was an illusion as well. It would trick the dragon into believing that he could no longer use his element in reality he still could. After discovering this out once a dragon could not be affected by its power again, but the perfected form makes it physical. It truly has the power to ban a dragon's element in battle. During our final battle he used this attack on me. It was quite the nuisance. Which brings me to my final point; I have yet to see the perfected form of his eclipse ability. Expect to be much more dangerous than its normal form."

"Alright then where do we go from here?" Rai asked.

"Well during your little recovery time, I managed to gather information on something quite interesting. It appears that someone is gathering dragon's in order to form a powerful group, or rather to add to their powerful group. It seems that they want to take over the Earth Dragon City, and they have stolen the leader's daughter. Their hideout is located to the north of the city."

"And what do you want me to do about it?" Rai said.

"There are certain individuals in this group that could give you a clue on how to defeat the Judges."

"Fine, it'll be a nice way to test my powers against individuals who have connections with the Order."

Slifer smiled at Rai's statement.


	15. The First Pillar

**Copyright: I do not own Spyro or anything Spyro related. It is all owned by Sierra Entertainment and Activision. I do own my original characters in the story.  
**

* * *

"We should be approaching their hideout in a matter of minutes." Brox said.

"Do you know what types of opponents we will be facing?" Spyro asked.

"Our leader did not tell us anything. He only mentioned that they were powerful fighters." He said, continuing to fly.

"We're almost there. You can see it off in the distance." Greg said.

Over the horizon the dragons saw a large fortress. They could tell that the stone fortress was larger than a regular castle. The color of the fortress was that of black metallic rust. They also noticed four large pillars surrounding the fortress. Each pillar had a medium sized crystal embedded into it. As they got closer to the fortress an elemental net could be seen surrounding the fortress. The dragons landed outside of the net's range.

"It seems that this place has pretty good defense." Spyro said.

"It appears that the crystals embedded on the pillars are what keep that net up." Greg said.

"So we just have to destroy each crystal and we can go in. Well then let's get going." Seth said, opening his wings.

"No, there is still something else that could be going on." Spyro said, stopping the wind dragon from flying off. "I mean it almost seems like that would be too easy."

"I agree with Spyro," Greg said, gaining their attention. "I believe that the crystals are being protected by the enemy. It makes no sense to go through all the trouble of putting up an elemental net if you leave those crystals unattended. They are also positioned in such a way that it is clearly obvious that if you destroy them the net comes down. I believe that the net is just a distraction to the real defense. The net would be enough to turn away minor enemies, but the dragons guarding those crystals must be the true defense of the fortress. They are the ones defending anyone from entering the fortress."

"So even before we enter that fortress we have to engage in battle." Spyro said.

"I know that you wanted to go as a group Spyro, but I believe that it would be better if we send four of our strongest members to deal with the crystals. We have to assume that the dragons on the outside are stronger than some of the ones we will face on the inside. The ones who fight against the dragons guarding the crystals can rest while the others fight the ones in the fortress." Greg said.

"I see, and if we do come across any serious dangers we still have Ember. She could heal you guys before we enter the castle." Flame said.

"Of course I would only be able to heal your injuries, I cannot restore the energy that you lost while fighting." Ember clarified.

"Alright so the only thing left is to decide which four of us will go to destroy those crystals." Spyro said.

"My brother and I will go." Brox said, stepping forth. "That way we can get an idea of how powerful these guys will be."

"I'll go as well," Blaze said.

"Alright then if he's going then I guess that I have to go as well." Blair said, stepping next to him. "After all he needs someone to keep him in check."

"Ok so then it's settled. Blair and Blaze, the two of you will destroy the crystals located on the two far back pillars. Greg and Brox, you guys will deal with the two crystals located on the front pillars. If at any time any of you need help just signal us and one of us will assist you." Spyro said.

* * *

The four dragons flew off towards their appointed pillars. The first one to arrive at one of the pillars was Brox.

"Alright then let's see how much it will take to break this thing." Brox said, lining up his horns with the crystal.

He felt someone wrap their mouth around the tip of his tail. He was thrown across the sky towards the top of the pillar. He landed on top of the pillar, looking around the sky he searched for the thing that had thrown him across the sky.

"Well it looks like you guys are the ones they sent to rescue our captive. I guess that this means you have declined our offer." A voice said from all directions.

"Forfeiting our city over to the likes of you creatures was out of the question." Brox said, turning around.

"Such a shame, I guess that this means that she will die, but our leader will want to kill her in front of her father. You on the other hand I can kill right here, Shadow Element: Shadow Strike." A shadowy figure jumped up from the ground, and began slashing Brox with its claws.

The green dragon jumped away from the figure, avoiding its deadly claws. "So I presume that you are the one defending that crystal." Brox said, looking at the black scaled dragon. He was around the same age and size as him.

"Yes, my name is Ubel. I presume that you have been sent by the Earth Dragon City to rescue a certain dragoness." He said.

"You got that right." Brox said, rushing towards the shadow dragon. He jumped in the air, and spun around in mid-air. He swung his tail down towards the black dragon's head. Ubel sidestepped the attack. Brox's tail hit the pillar, sending rubble flying in several directions. The impact left a small hole on the pillar. Ubel connected a punch with Brox's face, sending the earth dragon skidding across the pillar.

"Damn, I put more energy into that punch than I should have." He said, walking towards Brox. "Come on, I know that you're stronger than that. I mean you have to be, right? If not then why in the world would they send someone not qualified? I hope that the others are stronger than…" Ubel was cut off by an uppercut from the risen cement ground.

"You talk too much." Brox said, pulling his hand out of the ground.

"So that was your doing earth dragon. Well let me show you what a shadow dragon can do, Shadow Element, Shadow Claws." He said, surrounding his talons with shadows.

"Well let's see how you're going to get me from all the way over there. Especially without avoiding these, Earth Element:," he said, hitting his tail against the pillar. A cement wall rose from the ground in front of him. "Spiked Rubble!" He hit the wall with his horns, sending multiple medium sized pieces of rubble covered in spikes towards Ubel.

"Shadow Element: Envelope." He said, running into the incoming rubble. The shadows belonging to the multiple pieces of rubble flew up from the ground, and covered the flying objects. The grey objects turned a darkened color, and began flying towards Brox.

"He can manipulate objects." Brox said to himself. "Earth Element: Earth Dome." He said, digging his front claws into the pillar. The cement rose up from the ground, and formed a dome shape around the earth dragon. The objects hit against the dome, creating cracks on the dome. The last shadowy spiked rubble hit the dome, cracking on impact. Brox was safely inside the dome. None of the attacks had reached the earth dragon. He waited patiently for Ubel to strike the dome as well before he made his next move. He felt something beneath his feet, and before he could move out of the way six shadowy dragon talons came out of the ground. One managed to strike Brox's left side. The claws went further up, destroying the ceiling of the dome.

"I guess you didn't know that I could send my attacks underground by increasing their range, and then bring them back up to the surface." Ubel said, retracting his shadow claws back to their regular size.

"Well thanks for the information." Brox said, flying up towards the sky with a large cement object rising with him. He made sure that his tail was making contact with it at all time. He began morphing it into a squared cement object. Ubel looked on in awe as the swirling cement structure shifted into a square one. The cement structure was now square from the end all the way to the pillar that it was still attached to. Brox placed his paw on the side of the figure. He began flying down, moving the object with him. "Let's see how you like this, Earth Element: Structure Crush." He said, stopping in midair and letting the structure fall towards Ubel. His paw was still placed on the structure, manipulating the pillar beneath his feet to give more cement so the object would grow.

"Avoiding it is no problem, but if I do that then the pillar will be crushed along with the crystal. Then that settles it, I will have to match it with something equal in size and force." Ubel said to himself. "And I think that I know just what I'll use, Shadow Element: Shadow Object Control." He said, making his shadow increase in length. It made contact with the giant shadow that the squared cement structure had produced. "Alright let's see which one is stronger." He said, pointing his shadow claws towards the incoming structure.

The cement structure's own shadow slowly rose up from the ground. It was making its way up towards the cement structure. Ubel smiled as the massive shadow object collided with the massive cement structure. Brox pushed his paw further into the cement figure, trying to increase its power. The two objects began cracking under the pressure from the amount of force that they were producing. Brox noticed something from the objects colliding against each other. He smiled upon the realization. The two objects began breaking apart, and eventually both fell towards the ground. Ubel retracted his shadow from the structure. The structure's shadow went back to its regular position on the ground.

"Alright let's get this over with." Brox said, landing in front of Ubel. He pierced all four of his claws into the pillar. "Earth Element: Rising Land Formations." He said, manipulating the ground beneath him.

Multiple structures still attached to the pillar came out of the ground, and began targeting Ubel. The attack caught the shadow dragon off guard several managed to hit the dragon across his body. The cement structures were leaving bruises across his body. After several hits he began dodging them. The direction of the objects became predictable by reading the direction in which Brox would shift his paws around. Ubel began using his own shadow claws to destroy the incoming cement structures. Brox jumped backward, and once again pierced his claws into the pillar. He sent a larger swirling structure at him.

"Alright I can do that as well." He said, making contact with the object's shadow with his own. He directed the swirling cement shadow to collide against the regular one. The two attacks collided against each other, and just like last time it was a stalemate. "I guess that this will be another draw."

"I don't think so," Brox said. He smiled and jumped towards the cement figure. He rammed his horns into the cement structure shattering it into small pieces. The shadow mimicked the state of the original, breaking apart well. Ubel looked up in shock, and saw that Brox had used some of the cement to cover his horns in it. The green scaled dragon landed on the ground, and shoved his horns into his opponent's chest. "Earth Element: Augmented Earth Body Parts."

"When did you discover my weakness?" Ubel asked, losing consciousness due to the amount of blood that he was losing.

"When the giant structure figure that I created collided with the shadow version you manipulated. I saw that whatever damage happened to the real one happened to the shadow one. I specifically noticed this when I saw that the shadow one had a hole where the real had one. A hole that I made by piercing my paw into it."

"I see that was very clever off you to notice that." He said, blacking out.

Brox removed his horns from the dragon's chest, and slowly put his body down on the pillar. He then flew back down towards the crystal, and pierced it with his earth horns. The crystal shattered on impact. Brox watched as the pillar fell towards the ground. He let the cement attached to his horns come off as well. He flew back towards the group.


	16. The Second Pillar

**Copyright: I do not own Spyro or anything Spyro related. It is all owned by Sierra Entertainment and Activision. I do own my original characters in the story.  
**

* * *

Blair arrived at the pillar that she had been appointed to. She saw that the crystal was located in the center of it. She flew towards it preparing to destroy it, but was stopped by the appearance of a blue scaled dragon. She noticed that he was the same size and age as her.

"So are you the one guarding this crystal?" She asked.

"Yes my name is Iain," he said. "It would please me if you chose not to destroy that crystal."

"I'm sorry, but I have to destroy it. In order to proceed with the task my team was given." Blair responded.

"I see then what a shame that I have to kill a dragoness as beautiful as you." He said, flying towards her.

He flew up close to her, and threw a swift kick towards her abdominal region. Blair blocked it by putting her paws out in front of her. She then swung her tail at the dragon's neck, making sure to use the sharp end of it. The blue scaled dragon flew backward, avoiding the deadly blade. He then flew towards her, pointing his horns at her heart. Blair flew over the dragon, and kicked him on his back. Iain was sent flying downwards, but quickly recovered from it. He flew back towards Blair.

"Alright you bested me in physical combat, but let's see who wins in elemental combat." He said, backing away from her. "Ice Element: Ice Breath." He said, releasing a fury of ice from his mouth.

"I'll match you with the fire version of it, Fire Element: Fire Breath." Blair said, directing her breath towards the incoming ice.

The two attacks met up mid-air. Upon making contact they cancelled each other out. It appeared as if the two dragons' attacks were equal in strength. Mist was slowly starting to surround the area that the two of them were fighting in. They both ended their attacks, and looked around at all the mist that had formed.

"It's going to be hard locating the pillar again in all this mist." Iain said, hiding in the mist.

"Isn't your main objective stopping anyone from destroying that pillar? Well if it is then how are you going to stop me in this mist? This mist limits both of our vision." Blair said, looking around for him.

"Yes, that is my objective, but you see I have the advantage. All I have to do is defend you are the one that is on the offensive." He said, landing on top of the cement pillar. "Good luck finding your way to me."

"I'll just use the sound of your voice for that." She said, flying towards the left of her. As she flew a part of her tail touched something hidden in the mist. It blew up and froze part of her tail.

"Did I forget to mention that I covered the sky with tiny ice crystals? They blow up and freeze whatever comes in contact with them." Iain said.

"Fine I'll just melt them away." Blair said, breathing out fire. It did not take long before here fire was evaporated by the ice crystals it set off. Blair touched her cheeks, and discovered that they had ice on them.

"Keep on doing that it won't matter, because I can just create more of these crystals." He said.

"Fine then, I'll set them off all at once." Blair said, snorting out smoke from her nostrils. Her body tensed up, and began resonating a powerful vibe. Her red scales began to darken, while the mist around her started fading away.

"What is going on in there?" Iain said, noticing that the mist was behaving strangely. "I better go protect the crystal in case she tries to pull anything on me." He said, flying towards the middle of the pillar.

* * *

"Why is she using that attack this early on in the mission?" Blaze asked, staring towards the location that she was fighting in.

"So you feel it too, huh?" The sky-blue dragon in front of him said. "I'm guessing that power belongs to one of your team members."

"That isn't important." He said, turning to face the dragon. "The only thing important is the battle between you and me."

* * *

"That should be enough, Fire Element: Heat Wave." She said, releasing a wave of extreme heat in all directions. The wave instantly evaporated the mist, and ice crystals that hid within it. It incinerated the trees on the ground, and blew the ashes away. The clouds that were in the sky had been erased by the heat wave. Blair looked on at the destruction she had caused, panting heavily from the energy that she had exerted. She saw that the ground had been scorched by her attack. She then starred at the pillar that she had been ordered to destroy. The top and bottom half had been scorched by her attack as well. The center had somehow been unaffected by her attack.

"You managed to melt all the layers of ice that I put on it, but I managed to put just enough on to protect the crystal." Iain said, separating himself form the scorched part of the pillar. "I was not as lucky as the crystal. The ice shield that I put up for myself was no match for your attack, but at least I survived it." He said.

Blair stared at the dragon. His scales had become a red and black color. She guessed that her attack was responsible for his current condition. "It appears that you are no longer in any shape to fight." She said.

"Appearances can be deceiving." He said, breathing ice on his scales. "The pain is still there, but at least I can now move without having any of my limbs fall off. Now I believe that it is my turn, Ice Element: Ice Ray." He said, releasing a concentrated ray of ice at the dragoness.

Blair rolled across the sky in hopes of avoiding the attack, but the attack hit her left hind leg freezing it on impact. She looked back at the dragon, and saw that he was forming another one in his mouth. She rushed towards him, attempting to stop him from using it again. She was not quick enough, and got hit by another one. She flew back op towards the sky with two frozen limbs.

"It appears as if I was right." He said, flying towards her. "You haven't melted my ice away, which means that the last attack you used wasted all of your energy. You cannot use anymore elemental based attacks. You are at a disadvantage.

"No, you are wrong." Blair said, kicking the incoming ice dragon in the face. She then began to fly higher up.

"Running away, I guess that there is no other choice for you."

Blair flew up several feet before coming to a stop. She looked down, and saw that from the height that she was at her opponent looked like a small dot. She stared at the pillar, and saw that she could just barely see where the crystal was located. She spread her wings out to their full length, floating in the air as she did.

"What is she doing up there?" Iain asked.

"Fire dragons have the ability to draw power from the sun. The closer we are to it the more energy we receive from it. I need just enough for one more attack." She said, looking down at him. "It looks like I am ready, being this close to it has given me energy more quickly than I imagined." She flew down towards the ground, lining herself up with the crystal in the pillar. She then folded up her wings in order to increase her speed. "I wonder if you will be able to stop me this time, Fire Element: Falling Comet Dash." She said, breathing fire out in front of her.

"No way! I never imagined that my opponent would have been capable of such an attack." Iain said, backing up towards the crystal. "I'll use my strongest ice defense attack against it." He said, opening up his mouth. Ice slowly started forming around him, and the center of the pillar. Light blue ice covered the entire lower half of the burned pillar. It continued to grow; the ice layered itself on top of each other. _"Ice Element: Glacier,"_ he thought to himself within the large ice mountain.

* * *

"She can use falling comet dash?!" Spyro asked.

"Yea, she mastered the attack a couple of months ago." Ember replied, continuing to heal Brox.

"Is it wrong for her to be using that attack?" Seth asked.

"No, but she's using up too much energy. The heat wave attack was bad enough, and now this attack. It is three times the size of a normal comet dash, and because of that it uses up three times as much energy. We can heal her wounds, but we cannot restore the energy she has lost."

* * *

They watched on as the attack got closer to its target. The blazing spherical object was now within distance of the ice mountain. It collided with the mountain, melting away the glacier in the process. Iain was incinerated by the attack. The pillar and crystal were both destroyed by Blair's physical body colliding against the crystal. Blair landed within a medium crater that she had created. The area around her was in flames due to her own attack.

"I guess I overdid it." She said, looking around at the destruction she had caused. "Well it looks like there are only two crystals left to destroy." She said, noticing that the fortress's shield had weakened. "After seeing everything that I did they'll know that I'm out of energy. I just hope that they will still let me continue." She said, walking back towards the group.


	17. The Third and Fourth Pillars

**Copyright: I do not own Spyro or anything Spyro related. It is all owned by Sierra Entertainment and Activision. I do own my original characters in the story.  
**

* * *

"Don't think that because two have fallen that I will lose as well." A bright red dragon said.

"I'm not the type to get cocky in a battle just because it looks like my team is winning." Greg said, dodging the dragon's tail swipe.

"You know what I'll end this immediately. I have no intentions of waiting for my opponent to strike with their attack first." He said, backing up.

"And how do you intend to do that?" Greg asked.

"Fear Element: Paralyzing Phantom Fright," he said, sending out three red orbs from his mouth towards Greg.

The green dragon dodged the three orbs, sliding across the top of the pillar in the process. He noticed that three orbs were following him around. He dodged the first two again, but the third one hit him, slowing him down. The other two hit him before he was able to make a move. Greg tried moving his limbs, but it was no use he was paralyzed.

"It's over," the red dragon said, walking over towards Greg. "Goodbye," he said swiping his claw towards Greg's throat.

Before his claws could make contact with the dragon's throat a piece of cement came out of the ground, stabbing the dragon's paw. The dragon saw the sharp cement rock that had penetrated his paw. He backed away from Greg, and slowly began to take it out. He then saw several more sharp rocks jump out of the pillar and fly towards him. He flew up, hoping that he would dodge the rocks, but to his surprise they followed him into the air.

The light red dragon turned around to face the incoming rocks. "Fear Element: Fear Breath," he said, releasing a cloud of red smoke from his mouth. It covered the rocks, breaking them down into dirt. He flew back down towards Greg hoping to end what he had started. He made it within inches of the dragon before being hit in the abdomen by the green scaled dragon. The fear dragon was sent flying back up towards the sky.

"Alright let's see which one of us will win." Greg said, lifting his paws up towards the sky. Several large pieces from the cement pillar started breaking off. The piece of cement that he had been standing on also began flying up towards the sky. He made his way all the way up to the dragon. The pieces of cement followed him, flowing around the green scaled dragon.

"How are you able to move?"

"The fear element only gives the feeling of fear. If only the feeling is present, but not the source of it then it can easily be overcome." Greg said, resting on the floating chunk of cement.

"So you managed to figure out one of the weaknesses of my element." He said, noticing that the dragon was making the pieces of cement float in the air. "You've earned my respect dragon, and as a result I will give you my name. It is Alen."

"My name is Greg."

"How are you able to levitate the cement around you like that? I heard rumors that there was a dragon who could levitate entire islands. Are you using the same ability that he used?" Alen asked.

"No, that dragon used power to make them levitate. Mine levitate because I was born with this ability. I was born with the levitating earth element. Unlike other earth dragons I do not have to make contact with earth substances in order to manipulate them." Greg said.

"I see well let's see how it will fair against this." Alen said, holding his paws together. Red smoke started seeming out from his hands. "Fear Element: Phase Shot," he said, throwing the red object at Greg.

"That won't work." Greg said, moving his arm to the side. A large piece of cement flew in front of him, protecting him from the incoming attack. The attack made contact with the cement, and instead of clashing with it the red object passed right through it. It had phased through the cement, and gone right into Greg. His body collapsed on the floating structure. Most of the floating pieces around him fell towards the ground,

"I stored more fear into that attack than the last one. It will take some time until you will be able to overcome it." He said, looking at Greg's convulsing body. He flew towards Greg intending on taking the dragon's life. "You're done for."

"Not yet," Greg said, looking up at the incoming dragon. He brought a small piece of cement by his side. He saw that the dragon was a couple of feet in front of him. It was only a matter of time before he arrived. "This fear isn't real, and because of that I can push through it, Levitating Earth Element: Sculptured Piercing Diamond." He said, manipulating the shape of the cement into that of a sharp grey diamond shaped object. Greg launched the attack towards Alen, catching the dragon off guard as it pierced into his chest.

The dragon stopped in mid-air as the cement diamond shaped object embedded itself into his chest. With eyes wide opened he brought his paw up to his chest, touching the stone. Greg looked on, coming out of the paralysis that had been brought on by the fear attack. The look on his opponents face began changing from that of shocked to one of confidence. A smile formed on Alen's face.

"Fear Element: Phase Clone," he said, disappearing in a cloud of red smoke. The cement object dropped to the ground.

"What?"

"I win," Alen, said appearing from behind Greg unharmed. He directed the sharp end of his tail at the dragon's back.

"No, you lose."

A structure of cement elevated itself from the one that Greg had been riding on. It formed into a small pillar, piercing Alen on the right side of his chest. The miniature cement pillar continued on lengthening itself, using the large floating cement platform as a source for material. Greg turned around, looking directly at his defeated opponent. He moved his arm to the side, retracting the pillar from his opponent's body. Alen fell on the platform as the cement pillar retracted back into the cement platform it was attached to.

"How…how did you know?" Alen said, holding his paw against his injured chest.

"The fear element that you have is only good for one thing. Through our entire battle you were using it as an element that is best suited for a direct confrontation, but in reality it is best used as an assassination tactic. In other words the best time to attack is when your opponents back is turned. When their defense is down would be the ideal time to strike with that kind of element. Through our whole fight you were attacking me head on. At first I thought that you hadn't developed a fighting style that complements your element, but that one attack you used that was able to pass through solid objects gave it all away."

"How were you able to learn anything from that attack?"

"Don't you find it strange for someone that only focuses on frontal attacks to use an attack that passes through solid objects? Why not just use your fear breath attack again, and turn the cement into dust again? That's when I knew that you were waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Also from your careless actions of rushing in I was able to figure out that I wasn't fighting the real you. I knew that you were waiting for the perfect opportunity, so I gave it to you. The attack that you had hit me with prior had paralyzed me, and as a result you rushed in to finish me off. You were unaware of the fact that I could still levitate objects if I concentrated hard enough while under paralysis. When I stabbed you it was your intention to make me believe that I had killed you, but in reality I was prepared for your next move. As soon as you disappeared I predicted that you would try, and stab me with either your claws or tail. So judging from the sound of your voice I made a small pillar rise from the platform, striking you in your chest."

"Well it looks like you are now free to destroy the crystal." Alen said.

"I do not know what your leader thinks that they will be able to accomplish by abducting the daughter of our city's leader, but just know that whatever they are planning my group will put a stop to it." He said, sending a piece of cement at the crystal. It shattered the clear crystal into several tiny pieces. The shield that it was producing over the fortress weakened.

"Well it looks like it is time for me to go." Alen said, falling off the cement platform.

"What are you doing?" Greg said, chasing after him.

"I have failed, and as a result I am no longer a worthy ally for my leader." He said, falling towards the ground. As he was approaching the floor a large tree branch burst forward from a single lonesome tree. It wrapped itself around the dragon's hind leg, pulling him towards it. The dragon had made it to the tree, and was slowly being absorbed into the tree.

"Give me your paw!" Greg said, attempting to save Alen.

"No, like this I will still be of some use to my leader. I might die, but at least my energy will be of some use." He said, letting the tree absorb him. The tree slowly receded into the ground.

"We must put a stop to this." Greg said, flying back towards his group.

* * *

"Come on now, can't you do better than this?" The sky blue dragon said, dodging all of Blaze's punches. "Our battle has taken the longest everyone else has already defeated their opponent. You are the only one who has struggled this much with their opponent."

"Yea, you're right I should have taken you on with my full power from the beginning." Blaze said, taking several steps back.

"Don't stop attacking, because if you do it leaves you open for an attack from your opponent." The dragon said, whipping his tail towards Blaze.

"But getting overconfident is just as bad." Blaze said, catching the dragon's tail in his mouth. He lifted the dragon up in the air, and brought him back down, smashing his body on the concrete pillar. "I believe that at one point you said that your name was Mev."

"Yea, I gave you my name early on because I knew that you would be a tough opponent." He said, getting back up.

"Alright then from here on in I will be using all of my power against you." Blaze said, jumping at the dragon.

"I will do the same." He said, rolling out of the way.

Mev avoided Blaze's pounce, and began running at the dragon again. He had his horns pointed out in front of him, intending on striking the dragon. Blaze saw what he was doing, and at the last second rammed his horns at the dragon as well. The two collided, both dragons refused to take a step back. Instead they continued clashing horns. The pounding could be heard several yards away. The two kept on ramming horns, ignoring the blood that had begun to drip from the base of their horns.

"It looks like this is a stalemate." Mev said, noticing that they were getting nowhere.

"It would seem so." Blaze said.

"Let's make it more intense," he said. The dragon dodged the next collision with Blaze, deciding to fly up towards the sky instead. He began flapping his wings in front of him, directing the wind towards the center of his body. He pushed his arms out in front of him, and placed his left paw over his right. "Wind Element: Air Cannon," he said, releasing a burst of wind towards Blaze.

The red and blue scaled dragon jumped off of the pillar, dodging the attack. He looked back and saw that a chunk of cement had been blown off the pillar. He looked up, and saw that another one was coming towards him. Blaze released fire from his mouth, and began spinning around in circles. "Fire Element: Spiraling Flame," he said, creating a swirling flame that covered his body.

It created a spherical object that had yellow flames in the center, and orange ones on the outside. As it spun it gave the illusion of a disk like object. The attack collided with the burst of wind. The attacks collided with each other. The burst of wind blew the fire away, but the fire separated the wind. They had canceled each other out.

"It looks like we're even, but let's see how if the same outcome repeats itself." He said, releasing another air cannon.

Blaze dodged the incoming attack, knowing that he would not have enough time to create another attack. He saw that Mev was about to unleash another air cannon. "Fire Element: Fire Ball," he said, releasing a medium sized fire ball at the incoming attack.

The two attacks met in the air again, but unlike last time were the two were an even match, Blaze's attack failed. The fire was extinguished by the immense power wind that was soaring through the sky. Blaze saw that his attack had failed, and immediately covered himself with his wings. The wind hit him, and dispersed in several directions. Blaze's body was sent, flying downwards due to the power of the attack.

_I wonder if his fire ball would have won._ Blaze thought, remembering Rai's giant fire ball attack. The fire dragon closed his eyes as his body came crashing down. His body slid across the ground splitting it apart. Blaze got back up, revealing that his back had a couple of scrapes from the landing. His wings were horribly bruised from the air that had hit him. He flapped them testing if he was still able to fly. Even though he felt an intense pain from it he knew that he could still fly. He made his way back onto the top of the pillar, deciding that it was best if he used his wings sparingly.

"Got you," Mev quietly uttered under his breath. He flew down towards the top of the pillar. The sky blue dragon began releasing gusts of wind from his mouth. He began increasing his speed as he did this. The wind began encircling the top of the pillar, forming an orb around it. Mev separated himself from the channel of wind that he was in. He landed on top of the pillar. Gusts of wind were blowing all around the area that they were in. There were countless wind currents surrounding the top of the pillar. They were blocking the two dragons from escaping.

"What is this?" Blaze asked, looking around at the gusts of wind around them.

"You like it? This is my strongest attack, Wind Element: Wind Dome. It encircles an entire area in multiple wind currents that will cut anyone who decides to exit this dome. Several gusts of wind also enter the dome, surrounding the battle field that we are in. Well go ahead fire dragon it is your turn. Show me what you can do." Mev said.

"You're asking for it." Blaze said, opening his mouth. A small flame started forming in his mouth before a strong gust of wind came and blew out the flame. "What's going on?"

"Did I forget to mention that this attack blows away any flames that are created? As you know there are three outcomes that occur when wind goes up against fire. If wind is weaker it adds power to fire. If they are equal then they cancel each other out. If wind is stronger it extinguishes fire. This attack is especially deadly to fire dragons, because it stops them from attacking with their element. Now let's get started, Wind Element: Current Flow." He said, moving his left forearm around in the air.

The gusts of wind within the dome began following the movements his arm was doing. Mev commanded the flow of wind to attack Blaze. The wind flew into Blaze, passing through him it cut him in several places on his body. It left several small, but deep cuts all around his body. Blaze had used his wings to block the attack, but they offered little protection from the wind. The same wind turned around altering its flow. It flew passed Blaze from behind this time. The dragon was again left with several new cuts on his body. He resisted from collapsing on the ground.

"Is this the first time that you have battled against your own species?" Mev said, encircling himself with the wind current that he was manipulating. "It's different from fighting other creatures, because you are dealing with someone that also has an element at their disposal. If this is your first time, I can understand why you are struggling so much."

"No, this isn't my first time. I have already fought against several dragons each of them were capable fighters. I was only in danger of losing my life to one, but in the end I defeated that dragon. I have defeated every single dragon that I have fought against." Blaze said.

"Then I guess I have the privilege of defeating you for the first time." He said, manipulating gusts of wind again. He also brought his right forearm up, and began manipulating another set of gusts of wind. "Let's see if two of these can get the job done." He said, sending them flying towards Blaze.

Blaze jumped into the air, and began flying towards Mev. He flew over the first set of gusts he saw that he was about to close in on Mev. He looked around for the second set of gusts, but could not find them. He saw Mev smile at how unaware he was of its location. The second set flew down towards him, sending him flying towards the ground. The first set came right around, and flew passed him. It once again cut him, but this time it knocked him across the sky. Blaze was about to fly right into the wind dome barrier. Mev clasped his paws, combining the two sets of gusts into a larger one. The newly formed attack slammed into Blaze. It began slashing his back as it brought him into the countless currents of wind that made up wind dome. Once inside the walls of the dome the gusts of wind became one with it. Blaze was also inside the walls he felt his entire body getting cut by the currents of wind. These currents held more speed, and slashing power than the ones that Mev had been controlling. They began slicing up the young fire dragon's body. A mist of blood could be seen flowing around the dome. A current of wind pushed his body out, and back into the dome. His body fell onto the ground, splashing blood on the floor as his body made contact.

"Well it looks like I won. Don't feel too bad fire dragon, because out of the four guards I was the only one who held a Master Class Rank of G. I was the strongest guard." Mev said.

"It looks like I underestimated you." Blaze said, getting back up. "I thought that you were unranked so I took it easy on you, but now I can use more advanced attacks."

The wound that Blaze had sustained stopped dripping out blood. The wounds themselves appeared to be closing; it appeared as if they were being burned shut. Blaze's paws began giving off an amber glow. Mev watched on in amazement as the dragon still continued to fight on. He also began feeling something radiating from the dragon. It was his elemental power. He instantly knew that he could not hope to defeat Blaze. Mev began controlling the gusts of wind again. This time he encircled the winds around him, creating a wind barrier that he hoped would protect him.

"Just give up there is no way that you can defeat me." Mev said.

"Heated Dragon Fighting Style:" Blaze said, running towards Mev.

"Whatever you are planning on doing it won't work, because the wind will just extinguish whatever fire you create." Mev said, backing away from Blaze.

Blaze closed in on Mev, and threw a left punch at the wind dragon. Blaze pushed through the wind barrier, parting it with heat. The heated punch connected with Mev's cheek, lifting the dragon's two forelegs up. Blaze then slid his right hind leg across the ground, making contact with his heated paw up against Mev's hind legs. The attack took the dragon off the ground. Blaze then jumped in the air, and brought his left hind leg down. His heated up hind paw made contact with Mev's side, spinning the dragon around in mid-air. Blaze then threw one final punch at Mev. His heated up right fist connected with the dragon's chest, stopping him in mid-air. Mev had several burn marks from making contact with Blaze. He had a large one on his face, one on each hind leg, one on his side, and another one was forming on his chest.

"Four Hit Burn Mark," Blaze said, sending Mev flying across the sky.

The force at which he was sent flying was so immense that it broke through the wind dome, bringing it down. With the dome gone Blaze made his way over to the crystal, and broke it with a single punch. The shield finally came down, revealing the entrance to the fortress. With his task finished Blaze flew back towards the group.


	18. Doors

**Copyright: I do not own Spyro or anything Spyro related. It is all owned by Sierra Entertainment and Activision. I do own my original characters in the story.  
**

* * *

In another dimension enveloped in darkness, eight dragons sat behind pedestals.

"It looks like they are about to make their way into the fortress."

"It will almost be our turn to do our part in this."

"We should only kill two of them it seems that it would be the best option."

"Alright then once they are in the right situation we will end their lives."

"So who is next on our list to judge?"

"It appears to be one of our own, or at least he used to me one of us."

"I see that you all still sit around and do nothing." Malefor said, entering the area.

"Long time no see Malefor. You should be aware that we were the ones who brought you back again."

"The eight of you were also the ones who led me to my death." He replied.

"We did not lead you to it, but we were the ones who made the decision to end it."

"I presume that you did it for your own intentions." He said.

"We did it for you as well. I am sure that you remember your time with us. As you currently see we are stuck in this dimension. We can travel to other dimensions, but at the cost of losing half our power. That is because our group is not whole; we need you to be a part of it again. With you we will be complete, and be able to freely travel between worlds with our full power."

"What's in it for me?" Malefor said.

"We will return you to your true self."

* * *

Inside the fortress, towards the far end of the huge structure there was a marble textured room. In it there were three creatures. Two of these were dragonesses and one was a dragon. The smaller dragoness was trapped inside a cage that had a purple crystal on each side. The larger dragoness, who was the size of a full grown dragon, sat on the ground. She was looking at her subordinate, who was half her size.

"So you have something you wish to say to me?" She said, moving her sharp tail around slowly.

"It appears that all four of our crystals have been destroyed. The shield that was put up around the fortress is now destroyed. The four dragons that you assigned to protect the crystals were defeated in battle." The light green scaled dragon said.

"Who defeated them?" She said.

"It appears that a group of dragons have decided to attack us. From the four that fought, I was able to learn that there are two fire dragons and two earth dragons. I saw them fly back to where the other dragons were waiting. Amongst them I saw a purple scaled dragon; I believe that it was the legendary purple dragon."

"It appears that these dragons are from Warfang." She said.

"Was one of those dragons able to levitate earth?" The imprisoned dragoness asked.

"Yes, I believe that he was."

"They are here to rescue me then." She said, smiling.

"In order to do that they will have to make it through my highly skilled fighters." The larger dragoness said, standing on all fours.

"What do you want me to do your majesty?"

"Go greet our guests when they enter my fortress. Also ready the castles defenses make it so they can only advance through the castle once certain conditions have been met." She said.

"Is that all your majesty?" He said.

"Yes, now go." She said, sending the dragon off through the fortress. "I don't care that the dragons from the Earth City are receiving help from Warfang dragons. I have heard that Warfang dragons are very skilled, but my fighters are just as tough as them. Don't count on getting rescued, because if they do make it pass my fighters they still have to go up against me." She said, speaking to her prisoner.

* * *

Outside of the fortress Spyro and his team were waiting for Ember to finish healing Blaze. The group had destroyed the crystals, leaving the path towards the fortress wide open for them. They would soon face what their enemy had planned.

"So what's the plan once we go in?" Seth asked.

"Once we enter the fortress we will be in the enemy's territory. They will have the advantage, and we have to be very careful of how we advance through it. There is no doubt that we will have to fight against several other dragons. Brox, Greg, Blair, and Blaze have already exerted energy out here. Even though the four of them have had all of their injuries healed, the energy they used up cannot be replenished. Because of this those of us who have not fought yet will be the first to fight once we enter the fortress. By fighting later the four of them should be able to replenish some of their energy." Spyro said, looking at his teammates.

"Alright Blaze you're all healed." Ember said, stepping away from Blaze.

"Thanks," he said, sitting up on all four limbs.

"Alright then let's go." Spyro said, leading the team into the fortress.

The nine dragons stepped into the fortress. As all of them entered the gate behind them closed, sealing them off from the outside world. The team had entered into a long and wide hallway. They saw that the inner walls of the fortress were made up of pale colored marble, and that the floor was made up of light brown tiles.

"Why did you use the heat wave attack, Blair?" Blaze asked, confronting the dragoness about her hasty actions.

"I wanted to finish the battle as soon as possible." She replied, walking through the hallway. "I thought that I would still have plenty of time to regain some of my energy."

"That attack uses up all of the energy that you have. Now you will be in a major disadvantage if you fight again."

"Yea, but I still managed to defeat him. I was also able to regain some of my energy by flying back up towards the sky while Ember was healing you. So I should be able to handle myself if something comes up." She replied.

"I just don't want something happening to you." Blaze said.

"Don't worry so much Blaze, I can take care of myself. We are in the same rank after all." She said, looking back at the red-blue scaled dragon. "It is nice to know that you care, though."

As they walked further down the hall three things caught Spyro's attention. The first two things being that there was exactly one door on each side of them, and that the door at the end of the hallway was vanishing. The dragons stopped in their tracks, and waited for something to step out of it. A single light green scaled dragon that was about twice their size walked into the hallway.

"Welcome guests my name is Rattle." He said, staring at them intensely with his snake like eyes. "I am her majesty's second in command, and have been ordered to explain to you how advancing through her fortress works."

"Advancing?" Spyro questioned.

"Yes, you see this fortress has detected intruders. As a result it has activated its defense measures, which stops any intruder from advancing forward. The path behind me will only open for those that the fortress identifies as allies. Therefore I can pass through them freely, but if certain conditions are met other creatures can pass through."

"Like what sort of conditions?" Greg said.

"Take a look to your left and right. As you can see there is a door on each side, and on those doors there is something written. In order to advance forward you must fight against the dragons on the other side. The moment those of you chosen to fight enter the room the pathway will open for the rest of you. Now the inscriptions written on the doors correspond to how many and how strong the dragons are. As many dragons as you want can enter the room, but keep in mind that there are more enemies within the castle. That is all I have for you." He said, finishing his explanation. The light green dragon exited the hallway through the same door he had entered. It closed shut behind him, sealing itself until the group met the conditions

"So basically we just have to beat up a couple of their guys and we can pass through." Brox said.

"Well I guess we should check out what's in store for us." Blaze said, heading over to one of the doors. "This one just has the letter F."

"This one over hear has three letters one of them is an F and the other two are G's." Cynder said.

"That means that right at the start we are losing four of our members." Greg said, contemplating the situation. "And that's if we decide not to send more in."

"But what do the letters mean?" Flame asked.

"He said that the inscriptions would tell us how many and how strong they are. I can only think of one thing that those letters could represent. Now I know that our opponents are in the master class. Those ranked F and G, must be the ones that we have to go up against. So I guess that now we have to decide the dragons that will enter the rooms." Greg said.


	19. Volunteers

**Copyright: I do not own Spyro or anything Spyro related. It is all owned by Sierra Entertainment and Activision. I do own my original characters in the story.  
**

* * *

"I'll go in one of the rooms." Flame said, stepping forth. "I'll go in the room with the three dragons."

"I will go with Flame as well." Ember said.

"Since both of you are G ranked I guess it works out." Spyro said, looking at his team. "Someone with the rank of F should accompany the two of you into the room. Two out of the three dragons inside that room are ranked G while the other is an F ranked dragon. So who wants to back these two dragons up?"

"I'll go," Cynder said, stepping next to the two dragons. "I'm also ranked F so I can rival the power of the third dragon that will be in the room."

"Just be careful in there." Spyro said, watching as Seth went up to give her a kiss goodbye. He looked away from the two dragons. The scene of them kissing was too much pain for him to handle. _Did it hurt this much for you, Rai? _Spyro thought to himself.

"Spyro I would like to go up against the dragon behind the second door." Seth said.

"But you're ranked G, and the opponent on the other side is ranked F." Spyro replied.

"I know that, and I also know that I am the only one left besides you that did not fight earlier. The others still need more time to regain their energy. I want to pass through that door so that I can give the others a bit more time to regain energy." Seth said.

"Considering our current situation it would be the best option." Greg said, strengthening Seth's argument.

"Spyro you're not actually thinking about letting him go are you?" Cynder questioned.

"At this point we have no other choice. Those that are of that rank have already fought. He is the only option that we have." He replied.

"Don't worry Cynder I'll beat my opponent." Seth said, giving her a reassuring smile.

"I promise that no one will die while under my leadership." Spyro said, stepping towards the end of the hallway.

Cynder watched as the purple dragon made his way to the sealed door. The other four dragons that were going with him followed. Seth stepped in front of his door, and waited as it opened for him. He stepped into the room, and the door shut close sealing him inside the room. The seal that was on the door at the end of the hallway broke. Cynder, Flame, and Ember walked into their door. It opened revealing only darkness to them. The trio entered the room, releasing the final seal on the door.

"Let's go," Spyro said, leading the others further into the fortress.

Cynder, Flame, and Ember looked around in the room that they were in. They saw that it was made out of the same texture as the hallway, Across from them stood three dragons all around the same size and age as them. The dragon standing in the middle had light green scales and a light blue underbelly. The dragoness on his left had dark red scales and a brown underbelly. The one on his right had blue scales and a light blue underbelly.

"We heard that there were dragons from Warfang among you. Please tell us that at least one of you comes from Warfang." The dragon in the middle said.

"All three of us are dragons from Warfang." Cynder said.

The light green dragon smiled, "Alright then let's do this." He said, jumping backwards.

"Alright listen up you two," Cynder said, getting Ember and Flame's attention. "The light green one is obviously the strongest one. We need to work together in order for us to defeat them."

"Coming up for a plan won't work against us." The red scaled dragoness said, flying towards them. She whipped her tail towards Cynder, who caught it with her own. She drove the red scaled dragoness towards the ground. "I'm not the only one you have to worry about." She said, recovering from the drop.

The blue scaled dragoness caught up to them and threw a punch at Cynder, but Flame kicked her away from the dark violet dragoness. She regained her composure, and whipped her tail at Flame, hitting the fire dragon in his left forearm. Flame cringed from the sting of pain that it caused him. The dragoness took the moment to turn around and kick him in the jaw, sending the dragon sliding along the ground. Ember flew towards the blue scaled dragoness, biting her tail once she was within distance of it. She threw the dragoness towards the ceiling. The enemy hit the ceiling directly creating a couple of cracks in the process. Ember followed up by colliding against the dragoness, pressing her body against the ceiling even more. She flew away from her and watched, as the blue dragoness fell towards the ground.

"It won't be that easy." The light blue dragoness said, opening her maw. "Ice Element: Ice Spikes," She said, forming several sharp tipped objects in front of her. She sent them flying towards Ember. Several of the ice objects struck Ember, covering her in wounds. The pink dragoness began falling towards the ground. Flame flew towards her, and caught her before she collided with the ground.

"That's one down." The light green dragon said.

"Ember are you alright?" Flame asked.

"Yea, I just need some time." She said, looking at the several ice pieces that had pierced her. She took each one out, cringing at the pain it brought her. She then began to blow on her wounds, releasing a red mist from her mouth. The red mist made contact with her wounds, closing them up. She had used her red gem element to heal herself. Ember saw that Flame's forearm was also injured. She blew red mist onto his wound healing it.

"Thanks," he said.

"So she can heal wounds." The light green dragon said quietly to himself.

"Give up yet?" The red dragoness asked, attacking Cynder.

"Funny, I was just about to ask you the same thing." Cynder said, dodging her attacks. "I'll end this quickly, Fear Element: Fear Shock." She said, staring intensely at the dragoness. The red dragoness was frozen in place by the shock of fear. Cynder disappeared into the shadows, and then reappeared behind the dragoness. "Poison Element: Silent Death." She said, spitting on her claw. Cynder pierced her claw into her opponent's back, reaching her spine. The red dragoness collapsed on the ground. "The poison will slowly destroy the unconscious victim from the inside out. It takes a day to get the job done, but the receiver falls asleep and never wakes up. Now it's your turn." She said, focusing on the light green dragon.

* * *

"I guess he's my opponent." Seth said, staring at the dragon across from him.

"You must be quite confident in your skills to face me alone." He said. The dragon was twice the size of Seth, but had about the same body type. He had yellow scales and a light blue underbelly.

"It was my time to step up so that my friends could advance." Seth said.

"Alright then let's see what you're capable off." He said, running towards Seth.

Seth prepared himself for the incoming dragon. The yellow scaled dragon jumped at Seth, attempting to tackle him. Seth jumped out of the way narrowly avoiding the enemy's attack. He swiped his claws at the dragon, but they were quickly avoided by his opponent. Seth then attempted to ram his horns into the dragon's abdomen, but the dragon simply jumped over him. He turned around to face his opponent, and received a punch to the face in the process. The wind dragon was sent flying across the area. He landed several feet away from his opponent.

"How did you avoid my attacks so easily?" Seth asked, getting up from the ground.

"I guess I'm just faster." He said, grinning at the light green scaled dragon. "What's wrong is this the first time someone has avoided your attacks." He said, beginning to talk to Seth as if he were a child.

"Stop talking to me like that. I have had my attacks dodged before, but this is the first time someone has dodged showing little effort. I should be faster than you; I am the fastest member on my team."

"What's your element?" The yellow scaled dragon asked.

"It's wind, but what does that have to do with anything?"

The dragon smiled at his answer. "Sorry to break it to you kid, but a sky dragon's speed will always be second to an electric dragon's. Electric dragons are the fastest dragons in the world. Much like how earth dragons possess the greatest raw strength out of any other element dragon."

"So then what is your element?" Seth asked.

"Let me show you." The dragon said, creating sparks in his mouth.

Seth knew what was coming, and used his wind element breath before his opponent had a chance to use theirs. The electricity dragon released his electricity element breath mere seconds after Seth had used his. Seth's wind breach flew towards its target. It was a furious wind that was flowing rapidly in a circular motion. If the attack hit its target it would get sliced up by the furious wind. It clashed against the yellow scaled dragon's electricity elemental breath. The steady yellow stream of electricity began breaking through Seth's attack. Seth saw that his attack was failing. The wind dragon moved out of the way of the incoming attack, ending his own wind element breath. The electric attack missed Seth, hitting instead the wall behind him. Seth watched as the attack created several cracks on the wall. The electricity slowly subsided, revealing the ruined wall. He felt fear growing within him.

"Judging from your elemental strength, I'd say that you are in the master class and your rank is G." He said, slowly walking towards Seth. "I'm ranked F, and for you to face me alone knowing this is quite admirable, but I cannot fail her majesty. I promise that you will die here, and I will personally be the one to end it."


	20. Outranked

**Copyright: I do not own Spyro or anything Spyro related. It is all owned by Sierra Entertainment and Activision. I do own my original characters in the story.  
**

* * *

Back with Cynder, Ember, and Flame their struggle against their enemies continued.

"You say it like I should be afraid of being your next target. Before I fight you let me make this fight even again." The green scaled dragon said, flying up into the air. "Sonya use your attack now." He said, commanding the blue scaled dragoness.

"Alright," She said. The dragoness flew back towards the green dragon. She positioned herself besides him, and began releasing her ice breath.

"Wind Element: Ravishing Winds," he said, flapping his wings furiously in the air. His wings created several gusts of wind that were traveling in random directions towards Cynder's group. Midway to its destination the winds mixed itself in with the ice dragon's ice breath, creating a new attack. As a result of the mixture the wind became colder, and started freezing anything it came in contact with.

"We call this Icy Winds," Sonya said.

Cynder watched with horror as the attack made its way towards them. "It's a combination attack." She said. _Flame and Ember won't be able to handle something like this. Even I don't know if I can stop it completely._ She looked at her allies across from her. "Flame, I'm going to try and stop that attack. While I'm doing that I need you to sneak up on one of the dragons and finish them off."

"Alright I can do that." Flame said.

Cynder flew ahead of her allies in order to stop the incoming attack. The dark violet dragon opened up her maw, and began sucking in the wind around her. Currents of wind were moving directly towards her. She was also pulling her opponents' attack towards her, giving Flame a chance to carry out the plan they had made. Flame saw that Cynder had created an opening for him, and began flying towards the two enemy dragons.

_This will drain a lot of my elemental energy, but if Flame does his part we should be able to end this fight._ Cynder thought to herself as she continued to collect wind. Once she felt that she had collected enough the dragoness shut her mouth. _Here goes nothing Wind Element: Air Burst,_ She thought as she opened up her mouth. A burst of wind shot out flying rapidly towards the icy winds. Cynder flapped her wings furiously trying not to get blown away by her own attack. The burst of wind came in contact with the icy winds and immediately froze. Cynder kept on releasing the stored up wind she had collected, fueling her own attack. Her attack began cracking the ice that was forming around it.

"Should we be worrying about that, Neil?" The blue scaled dragoness asked her comrade.

"Exactly as I predicted." He said to himself.

"What was that?" She asked.

"No, our combined attack is stronger." He said, answering her first question. "You take care of things on this end while I take care of that." He said, pointing at Flame.

"Almost there," Flame said, flying towards the end of the room.

"Just what exactly were you thinking of doing once you got there?" Neil said, tackling Flame in mid-air. He began pushing the fire dragon back towards the entrance of the room. Flame tried pushing the dragon back, but it was no use. The wind dragon was using the air to aid him. Flame was sent towards the ground. The fire dragon recovered, and readied an attack.

"Fire Element: Fire Breath," he said.

"Wind Element: Wind Current," Neil said, releasing a current of wind from his mouth. His attack made contact with Flame's fire attack, and instantly extinguished it. Flame looked in awe as his attack was nullified right before his eyes. The wind attack enveloped Flame, creating several cuts across his body. Flame stood his ground he refused to let his opponent get the better of him. He looked back up towards the sky, and saw that Neil had vanished. The sky dragon was nowhere to be seen.

Cynder's attack broke itself free from the ice that had formed around it. The burst of air travelled through the other side of the room. Sonya looked on as the attack enveloped her. It pushed her back cutting the dragoness apart in the process. Blood flew through the sky, as the dragoness's lifeless body hit the wall. The wind reached the end of the room, and then dispersed across it. Without having an exit the wind blew furiously across the room, until it came to a calm stop. Cynder fell down towards the ground; the attack had taken a toll on her. She looked around the room, and saw blood splattered across the walls and floor. She guessed that the wind had directed her opponent's blood to those spots. A disfigured figure was lying against the wall opposite to the dark violet dragoness. A pool of blood, caused from the deep cuts on the body, had formed around the figure. Cynder switched her glaze from the body to Flame who was running back towards her direction. It was then that she realized that Flame had yet to finish off the last enemy.

"Flame where is…" Cynder stopped mid-sentence upon seeing a figure covered in wind head towards her.

"Don't worry you're not my target." Neil said, passing the dragoness by.

Cynder turned around to confront the figure, but saw that he had already left her in the dust. It then dawned on her that the enemy was heading for Ember. Flame continued flying towards the dragon, and Cynder began doing the same.

_Damn, he must have seen her heal Flame. _She thought to herself.

The figure arrived towards the entrance of the room where Ember resided. She had remained at the entrance in order to provide aid to her injured teammates. Ember saw with eyes wide open as the figure appeared in front of her. He pulled his arm back, forming a fist in the process. The wind that had been covering the dragon began surrounding the dragon's fist. It formed a calm visible orb around the fist. Out of fear Ember began backing up against the wall behind her.

"Wind Element: Air Burst Punch," he said, delivering a ferocious punch to the pink scaled dragoness's chest, sending a shockwave through the room. A burst of air traveled through Ember's body, and made its way to the wall that she was up against. The force of the wind created several cracks along the large sturdy wall, sending rubble flying off of it. Flame and Cynder stopped in mid-air upon seeing the attack unfold. Her friends could not get any indication of how badly the dragoness had been injured. They did no hear any bones crack, or see any blood spill. Only her eyes gave any indication. In her eyes they saw a reflection of themselves. They saw themselves crying over the loss of her, as her eyes closed. Neil removed his fist from her, letting Ember fall towards the ground.

"Ember…" Flame watched as Ember's body hit the ground with a thud.

"With her taken care of none of the dragons that came here will be able to receive her healings." He said, jumping away from Ember. "Even if your teammates manage to defeat us they will most likely die as well. There is no doubt that they will suffer life threatening injuries in the process of fighting against us. We will have the last laugh, because there will be no one to heal them." He gave them a sly smile.

Flame felt something in him snap when he saw Neil smile at them.

"You're dead," Flame said, preparing an attack. "Fire Element: Fire Breath," He said, unleashing a steady flow of fire from his mouth.

"A simple attack like that will not be enough to kill me." He said, shielding himself with his wings.

"Well what about a combination attack?" Cynder said, releasing her wind breath attack.

The furious wind began mixing in with the fire, empowering it. It created a storm of flames that only had one purpose, which was to burn down anything in its path. The combined attack covered Neil. The wind dragon squirmed around on the ground as he felt the attack slice him, but then cringed as he felt it also burn the wounds close. The act of his wounds burning shut created an unbearable pain within the dragon. This lasted for several minutes until the attack subsided. Neil's lifeless body could be seen on the ground. The attack had darkened his scales considerably. There were countless burn marks across his body. The anger from the two dragons had been enough to kill their last opponent. Flame and Cynder paid their opponent no attention. They did no look to see if he was dead or alive. Flame was solely focused on Ember, holding her close to his chest.

"She's still breathing," Cynder said, watching as the fire dragon held the pink dragoness. The door behind them disappeared. It revealed the hallway that they had entered from. "I hope no one else has to go through this."

"What do we do now?" Flame asked in a low tone.

"Wait for the others to complete the rescue." She said, looking into the hallway. _I don't want what happened to Ember to happen to you. She was attacked by someone of a higher rank than her, and it almost killed her. Please take care of yourself, Seth.  
_

* * *

The yellow scaled dragon continued to beat down Seth. The sky dragon was getting hit across the sky in different directions. The electric dragon was not taking it easy on Seth. He saw that his opponent was about to deliver another kick. Seth used the air to evade the incoming attack. He was barely able to avoid it. Seth began backing away from the electricity dragon, hoping to create a gap between them.

"I see that you are not a very adapt wind dragon." He said, flying towards Seth. "If you were then you would have taken advantage of the fact that we are currently fighting in a wind dragon's domain, the sky."

"Alright then let's see how you like this, Wind Element: Rotating Air Cutter." He said, flapping his wings with full force. His wings created a rotating wind that would cut up anything in its path. The electricity dragon smiled upon seeing his attack. The wind dragon was finally showing some spirit. Seth was proving that he would not let the difference in their strength get to him. The electric dragon used his speed to fly over the incoming sky attack. He flew up high into the sky, preparing for an attack. As soon as he had the altitude that he needed, the dragon folded his wings.

The electricity dragon began descending towards Seth at an incredible speed. Seth saw his opponent approaching, and decided not to retreat. As soon as he saw that his opponent was at a point where he could not avoid an attack, Seth released his wind breath. The electric dragon turned around, and opened up his wings in mid-air. His wings blocked the sky dragon's attack, leaving him wide open. Using the blunt end of his tail, the electric dragon, smacked Seth across the top of his head. The hit sent the dragon falling towards the ground. A large thud was heard as Seth collided with the ground.

"That ended quicker than I expected." He said, examining Seth's motionless body.

"What's wrong?" Seth said, getting back up. "Are you really having this much trouble finishing someone who's weaker than you?"

The electricity dragon began flying down towards him. Even though the sky dragon managed to get back on his feet, it was obvious that he was injured. He was panting heavily, and had an open wound on the top of his head. Blood had already begun to trickle down his face from it. Even though the dragon could barely stand on his own four limbs he would not give up.

_I've heard of what Spyro is capable of from her. And even though I cannot do some of the things he can. I want to prove to her that I can be just as determined as him. It's true that at this point she is stronger than me, but I just want her to see that I can take care of myself. I want her to see that she can depend on me. I won't let you down Cynder._ Seth thought to himself.

The electric dragon landed in front of him, and immediately Seth saw that there was something different about him. The dragon's entire body was blinking a yellowish color.

"Confused? You should be." He said, running towards Seth. "Electricity Element: Electricity Charging Flow," he said, sending a right punch towards Seth.

The electric blinking light that had surrounded the dragon swiftly focused itself onto the dragon's fist. The punch landed on Seth's cheek, frying him with electricity. The force of the punch sent him flying through the field. The electricity dragon used his speed to immediately catch up with the dragon. This time he swung a left fist at Seth. The blinking electric light flowed through his body, charging up electricity along the way. Just as the punch was about to land the electricity formed around the left fist. The punch hit Seth in his chest, keeping the dragon traveling across the field. The force from the punch was stronger than the last one. The electric dragon appeared behind Seth, and began sending a kick towards the dragon's back. Once again the electric blinking light moved towards his leg, gathering electricity as it travelled. He landed the kick sending Seth flying towards the sky. The electric dragon watched as Seth's electricity filled body travelled through the air.

"Now I see the attack increases in strength with each hit, because the electricity charges up as it flows through his body." Seth said, trying to gain control of his body.

Seth opened up his wings, regaining his composure. He began collecting wind, and surrounding it on the tip of his tail, which was axe shaped. The wind was forming itself into an axe, and was now three times the size of the original. The electricity dragon watched with eyes wide open. He knew that the attack would cause serious damage to him. He began flying towards the sky dragon, but as soon as he did, Seth began unleashing it.

"This is my strongest attack, Wind Element: Wind Creation Air Splitting Axe." He said, whipping his tail towards his opponent.

The giant wind axe detached itself from his axe tipped tail. It sored across the sky towards its target, splitting the wind in the process. As it travelled the object's speed increased. The electricity dragon watched as the giant wind formation made its way towards him. He could see that within the axe there were multiple air currents that would undoubtedly slash his body up. The electricity dragon decided to continue flying towards it, ignoring any notion that told him otherwise. He raised his two front paws out in front of him determined to send it back at his enemy.

The two figures collided mid-air and it immediately became obvious that the wind axe was winning. It pushed the electric dragon down towards the ground. He could feel his paws being cut by the wind axe. He began flapping his wings intensely in an attempt to slow it down, but it was to no avail. The axe was still increasing speed, and with each passing second the electric dragon knew that he would soon hit the ground. Seth watched as the wind axe collided against the ground. The wind that had formed the axe began breaking apart. Surging winds moved towards the ground slicing it up, and anything else that was currently down there. Then as soon as it had formed, the wind had just as quickly departed leaving nothing behind but calm winds. Seth slowly landed back onto the ground. He looked across the field, and to his horror he witnessed the electric dragon stand back up.

"That was a pretty strong attack." He said, staring at Seth from afar. The dragon had a large slash across each front paw. Blood trickled down from them, dripping onto the ground. His entire torso was covered in multiple scars, leaving him a bloody mess. "For the damage someone of your rank did on me, I will give you my name." The dragon ran up towards Seth, catching him by surprise. "I am Venn, and this is the end for you." He said, placing one of his claws on Seth's forehead. "Electricity Element: Electric Charge Shot," he said, delivering a surge of electricity to Seth's head.

The shot of electricity sent the wind dragon flying backward, and smacking into the wall behind him. Seth fell towards the floor. Venn began walking away from the dragon, knowing that he had finally killed him. Unbeknownst to Venn, Seth began getting back up. The electric dragon felt the sky dragon get back up. Venn slowly turned around to face him. As he did he saw that the dragon was already beginning to form an attack, but something surprised him about it. The color coming from the dragon's maw was a light purplish color. Seth was preparing to release a convexity attack. Venn moved out of the blast's path just as Seth released it. He saw the attack move across the room. It was splitting up the ground beneath his feet with its sheer power. He watched as the convexity blast made contact with the multiple layered concrete wall. It managed to create a large hole several feet deep. Venn turned back around to face Seth, whom appeared to be a completely different dragon.

_What is this? I'm getting a different vibe from him now. It doesn't seem like he was replaced by a different dragon. Instead it seems like this power was with him all along._ Venn thought to himself. "Who are you?"

"I am part of the Dark Master's elite guard." Seth said, taking a step forth. "I am The Shredding Wind Dragon Seth."


	21. Moving Forward

**Copyright: I do not own Spyro or anything Spyro related. It is all owned by Sierra Entertainment and Activision. I do own my original characters in the story.**

**(A/N): Thanks for all the positive feedback, I got from the last chapter.  
**

* * *

_Eight Years Ago_

Inside one of Malefor's many lairs, a figure walked through the hallway. He was being guided by two apes. The three figures were doing their weekly routine were they would examine each of their prisoners. They would examine each dragon's physical performance. It had been eight years since they had taken the dragons by force from one of the dragon temples. They arrived at one cell where one particular dragon had been assigned. The two apes opened the cage for the larger figure. The figure walked into the cage and came eye to eye with the young dragon. The young dragon had light green scales and a light blue underbelly.

"Let's see if this one has gained his yet." Gaul said, smacking the dragon across the face with his staff.

The dragon staggered backward for a second before regaining his composure. The dragon locked eyes with Gaul for a couple of seconds. He stared at the ape king intensely, trying to make him see the hatred he had for him. The dragon opened up his maw, releasing a surge of wind that threw Gaul backwards against a wall.

"Well it looks like we have found another one that has gained their element early." He said, regaining his composure. "You also have something else that we look for, and that is a lust for blood. The fact that you are an early bloomer, and that you have the blood lust mentality we look for makes you a perfect candidate. Lead him to our experimentation room." He said, directing the two apes. "If he manages to live through the convexity transfer then we can finally complete the Dark Master's elite guard."

* * *

_Present_

"The Dark Master's elite guard?" Venn said, questioning Seth's sudden outburst. "You must be lying. I heard that they all fell in battle. Besides I've heard that they were capable of amazing elemental feats. It was believed that they were some of the strongest dragons of the new generation. You do not fit that description. If you are truly part of that group you have failed your task, because the Dark Master is already dead." He said, teasing the dragon.

Venn ran towards Seth, and began throwing punches at him. Seth easily avoided each, moving with the wind to aid in his evasiveness. The electricity dragon grew furious upon seeing the dragon dodge his punches without trying. He could not understand why his opponent was suddenly able to dodge them. Nothing had changed between the two. As far as he could tell his speed was still the same, and the wind dragon had not activated any sort of ability. It was then that he felt something resonate from the dragon. This feeling was burning the dragon, and sending shivers op his spine. He could feel Seth's power begin to not only over power his, but it felt like his power was being eaten by his opponent's. He could feel Seth's blood lust surround the room. The elemental power that the dragon was now showing blew his away.

"This…This power is equal to our leader." He said, with eyes wide upon. "This power far exceeds my own. This is the power of someone that has been given the rank of D. How the hell were you able to increase your power so much?" He said, as he felt his fist get caught by Seth.

"This has always been my power." Seth said, encircling wind around the electric dragon's arm. The wind tore the electricity dragon's right arm, shredding it to pieces. The electric dragon looked on in horror as his forearm was reduced to mere dust. The wind had splattered blood across the floor. Blood poured from the area that used to connect with Venn's limb.

"Please no more, I don't want to die not like this." The electricity dragon said, looking into Seth's cold eyes. A shiver went up the dragon's spine, seeing that there was no emotion in his eyes. Seth ignored the dragon's plea, and grasped his paw around the dragon's neck. Venn saw that the dragon was encircling his right paw with wind.

"Now let the winds guide you to your death. Wind Element: Piercing Wind Torrent," Seth said, piercing his claw into his opponent's chest.

Wind surged from his claw, and into Venn's chest. The surge from the wind created a large hole in the electric dragon's chest. The surge of wind carried blood out of the dragon's body, and splattered it across the room. Some of the blood trickled onto Seth's face. The wind flew across the wall colliding against it. The dragon's wind was so strong that it broke the multiple layered concrete wall, creating a large hole to the outside. Seth still held onto the lifeless dragon. He saw that a large amount of blood was gushing out of the dragon's newly formed wound. He also noticed that the dragon was beginning to disappear, a sign that the dragon was passing. Having no more interest in the dragon, Seth threw his body across the room. He turned his back on the dragon and began walking towards the exit.

"Not enough blood was spilled here today to satisfy me." He said before passing out on the ground.

* * *

"Did you guys feel that?" Blair asked the group.

"It seems that the huge spike of power suddenly disappeared." Greg said, running across the hallway.

"No one in our group has that kind of power." Spyro said, leading the group through the hallway.

"Then it must have come from the enemy." Brox said.

"All the more reason to reach the end of this hallway." Blaze said.

"Well it looks like we have." Spyro said, stopping in his tracks.

The five dragons looked upon the sealed door in front of them. They once again saw that there was one door on each side of them. This time they saw that each door only had a single letter, but the letters were higher in rank than the group. Both doors had an opponent on the other side that was ranked E. Out of the entire group only Spyro held that rank.

"I'll go," Blaze said.

"I'll enter the other room." Blair said.

"You guys don't have to do this individually. Two of us can go into each room at the same time." Brox said.

"No, it's better this way. You and Greg need to represent your city. Your leader's daughter should see that dragons from her own city have come to rescue her. I have no doubt that Spyro will be able to get the two of you to her." Blair said.

"Plus so what if these guys are on a higher level than us. The two of us have faced some pretty difficult opponents in the past and we've managed to beat them." Blaze said, remembering the cheetahs that he and Blair had once fought against.

"Alright then we have faith in you." Spyro said.

Blaze and Blair each stepped through the tangible door, unlocking the sealed door for their comrades. Spyro, Greg, and Brox stepped through the door, leaving their teammates behind. They continued onward leaving Blaze and Blair to fight enemies that would surely test them in every area. The three dragons had faith that they were up to task. They believed that their teammates would come out victorious regardless of the odds.

Blair examined the room that she was in. The first thing that the fire dragon noticed was that the dragon that had greeted the team when they first entered was in the room with her. The light green dragon turned around to face the red scaled dragoness. Blair looked into the dragon's snake like eyes, and immediately felt that the dragon was remarkably strong. He jumped in the air, and began flying towards her. Blair immediately jumped in the air, and released a medium sized fireball. Rattle began spinning around in the air. The fireball found its mark, covering the older dragon in flames. Rattle continued spinning around in the air while covered in flames. He came to a sudden stop, and opened up his wings. The act caused the flames to fly off of his body, and onto the ground beneath them.

"You'll have to do better than that girl." Rattle said, dashing in the air towards Blair.

Rattle delivered a kick to Blair's head, but she managed to block it using her left wing. The light green dragon used his larger body to tackle the dragoness into a nearby wall. Blair quickly pushed herself and the dragon off of it. She kicked the dragon in the face, sending him flying backwards. The dragon shook of her attack, and headed back towards her. Blair opened up her maw, releasing her fire breath. She knew that she had to rely on weaker fire attacks, because if she used stronger ones her energy would deplete quickly. Upon seeing the vibrant flames, Rattle backed away from the dragoness. He created as much distance between himself and the flames as he could.

"It appears that you are going to put up a fight even though it is useless. Alright I want to get this fight over as quickly as possible, Poison Element: Knockout Breath." He said, releasing a green mist from his mouth. The green substance quickly filled the room.

"What is this?" Blair asked.

"The moment you breathe in that stuff your body will start to shut itself down. The more you move or exert yourself. The faster it will take effect. The poison will eventually put you to sleep, and I will be able to do what I wish with you." He said, licking his lips.

"In other words I have to beat you as quickly as possible before I get knocked out." Blair said.

"Show me what you are capable of Warfang dragon."

* * *

Blaze and a dark green dragoness around the same size as him exchanged blows in the middle of their room.

"I'm amazed that a rank F dragon can actually hold their own against a rank E one." She said, delivering a punch to Blaze.

"Instead of being amazed you should focus more on the battle." Blaze said, matching her incoming punch with his own. The impact created a small shockwave that travelled through the room.

"Oh how true." She said, purring at him.

The dragoness smashed her tail against the floor, bringing spikes forth from the ground. Blaze jumped away from her, dodging several spikes. The dragoness smashed her fist into the ground. A part of the stone floor attached itself to her fist, empowering her fist.

"Earth Element: Augmented Earth Body Parts," she said, running towards Blaze.

The fire dragon blew fire at his fist, readying his fire fist attack. The two opponents threw their elemental punches at each other. The punches collided against each other. While struggling to overpower Blaze the dragoness felt something from him. She quickly felt that the dragon was holding back for some reason. The dragoness wanted him to fight her seriously.

"Transfer," she whispered. The stone surrounding her fist began moving onto Blaze's fiery fist. The stone substance began trapping the fire within it. The dragoness watched as Blaze's fist became incased in stone.

"What is this?" Blaze said, lifting up his stone fist.

"Fighting an opponent who is not taking a fight seriously is really frustrating. How about you show me what you can really do, or else I'll have to trap more of your body in stone." She said, fluttering her eyes seductively at Blaze.

"If you want me to fight with full power then I suggest that you come at me with everything you got." He said.

"Alright then, just know that if you still continue to fight the way you currently have that this will be a short battle." She said as she began stumping her forelegs, hind legs, and tail on the ground.

Blaze flew up into the air, and watched as the ground beneath him began breaking apart. He knew that if he continued fighting the way he previously was that he would not be able to defeat her. Blaze knew that if he was going to come out victorious he needed to overwhelm his opponent with his fire attacks. Blaze began heating himself up again, but instead of only doing it to his paws like before. The fire dragon began heating up his entire body. His entire body began glowing an amber like color.

"Fire Element: Heated Dragon Mode," he said.

"His elemental power just went up a bit." The dragoness said to herself.

_In this form I am able to fight at the level of a dragon with the rank of E. Not even the Guardians know that I possess this form. _Blaze thought to himself. "Fire Element: Heated Surging Flame Breath," he said, releasing a continuous flow of amber colored fire.

"That's what I want to see." The dragoness said, sliding her paws across the ground. "Earth Element: Total Reconstruction," she said, creating several spiked pillars from the ground beneath her.

The pillars moved towards Blaze's incoming attack. Blaze's heated flames made contact with the stone pillars, enveloping the pillars in amber flames. The fire burned the pillars to a crisp. The earth dragoness saw that the flames were making their way towards her. She immediately closed her wings in front of her. Cement from the walls moved in front of the dragoness, offering her protection from the flames. The blistering flames made contact with the wall, and began to slowly melt the protective walls. Before the flames could get to her they extinguished. The dragoness let out a sigh of relief upon realizing that the flames had ran out of power.

Her relief quickly vanished when she looked back up at her opponent. She saw that Blaze was flying down towards her. Out of desperation the dragoness molded the ground into a spiraling pillar, and directed it upwards towards Blaze. The fire dragon saw the pillar moving towards him, and stuck out his fist in front of him. The two figures made contact, upon making contact with Blaze the pillar easily melted. Blaze flew through the pillar, melting any obstacle in his way. The dragoness watched in amazement as Blaze melted her pillar like it was nothing. She began taking a step back out of fear. Blaze was within reach of the dragoness. He was preparing to finish her off, but just as he was getting ready something unexpected happened. His amber glow faded. Blaze instantly knew that he had run out of energy.


	22. Reinforcements

**Copyright: I do not own Spyro or anything Spyro related. It is all owned by Sierra Entertainment and Activision. I do own my original characters in the story.  
**

* * *

Once again in a separate dimension nine dragons sat upon their pedestals. They have added another dragon to their ranks. Malefor now sat with them, having joined the group once more. One of the judges summoned two books, and put them out in front so that all of them could see. One book had a red and blue covering, while the other had a red covering.

"I am sure that all of you know that if we are going to end the life of two dragons now is the time." One of the judges said.

"We have all come to an agreement that the dragons Blaze and Blair will be the ones who will have their lives ended today. They have been set up in perfect circumstances in which we can add the page that details their death." Another judge said.

"Alright then let's add that page to each of their book." A judge said, bringing forth two pages from the darkness. The judges inserted a single page into each of the two books that were laid out in front of them. "Now we wait for their deaths to happen."

* * *

"Now that you have zero energy left you are helpless." The dark green dragoness said, using the earth to hold Blaze in place.

"I won't give up, I can still beat you." He said, trying to pull his paws out of the ground.

"The only thing you could have possibly done was hit me with physical attacks, and I have already robbed you of that by imprisoning your paws in stone. There is nothing that you can do fire dragon." She said, wrapping an earth spear around her arm. "And now you die."

* * *

Blair laid across the ground, she had passed out from the poison that Rattle had released into the air. He began walking towards her. The red dragoness had fought valiantly attempting to finish off her opponent before the poison took its effect. In the end the poison had won and knocked her out cold. Now she was at the mercy of her opponent.

"Don't worry; you won't feel anything because of the poison." He said, arching his tail back. He was preparing to stab her throat with the sharp end of his spiked tail.

Rattle was about to stab Blair in the throat when something distracted him. A loud boom echoed from one of the walls of the room. Rattle turned around to the entrance of the room, and saw that the entrance wall had been blown away. The poison that he had released into the sealed room quickly left through the new exit. A huge cloud of dust now filled that area of the room. Two figures could be seen making their way out of the dust, and into the room.

"We should have gone through the door." A female voice said.

"Now you tell me that there was a door. You should have told me that before saying that there was an enemy on the other side of the wall I just knocked over." A male voice said.

"Who are you? Show your selves." Rattle commanded.

Two dragons stepped out of the cloud of dust. One dragon had green scales and a brown underbelly, while the dragoness had light brown scales and a forest green underbelly.

"Hey isn't that one of the dragonesses we met back when we were looking for Malefor. Wasn't she a part of Spyro's group?" Gen asked.

"I knew that I sensed something familiar upon arriving at this castle. Who would have guessed that they would be here too?" Ares said.

* * *

"Who are you?" The dark green dragoness said upon noticing that another dragon had entered the room.

A single cyan scaled dragoness walked towards the earth dragoness.

"I guess you could say that I am your new opponent." Glacia said, looking at a defeated Blaze.

"And what makes you think that you can defeat me." She said, focusing her attention on Glacia.

"I'll show you." Glacia said, appearing up close to the dragoness. She delivered a swift kick to the dragoness, sending her flying towards the sky.

"Why are you guys here." Blaze said.

"Apart from saving your life, which I really regret doing. Rai came here to find something." She said, flying up towards the green scaled dragoness.

* * *

"With the interference of those dragons it seems like their deaths will not happen." One of the judges said, as the others watched as the pages they had written burned up.

* * *

"Great now instead of dealing with one group of dragons we have to deal with the purple dragon's team as well. If our dear leader hadn't stopped to meditate we would have made it here a lot sooner, and probably could have avoided meeting up with the purple dragon's group."

"Why don't you stop your whining and defeat our enemy over there." She said, directing him to Rattle.

"Who are you guys?" He said, taking his attention off Blair.

"You know even I really don't know who we are. It just seems like we go around killing creatures. So I guess you could call us mercenaries, but I don't know if that quite describes us either. Especially since only one of us does the killings nowadays, and he has only killed one dragon so far with us." Gen said.

"It appears that you are not part of the first group of dragons that came here." Rattle said, looking over towards Blair. "What do you hope to accomplish in this fortress?"

"Beats me, I just came along because I was ordered. You see the dragon that is our leader seems to believe that he can acquire something from this fortress. He didn't tell us what it would be, but seeing that I had nothing better to do I followed. You see I am also searching for something, or rather certain individuals. Maybe someone in this fortress has information on their whereabouts."

"So you only follow your leader because it benefits you?" Rattle questioned.

"You could say that besides he only thinks of us as pawns. What does it matter to you anyway?" Gen replied.

"It matters because one should always follow their leader without question. They should be willing to die for the creature that they follow. Every dragon in this fortress has pledged their undying loyalty to her majesty. She saved us from the nothingness that we would have eventually drowned in. She was a mother who had lost our child, and adopted us in that child's place. We are her children, and we will do whatever it is she wishes."

Gen began laughing at Rattle's statement. "Sorry that was very touching, but I would never be willing to die for that dragon. Just like I know he would never be willing to die for any of his teammates. We simply work together, because we have common interests. Now I have a question for you. Do you know the whereabouts of any of Malefor's elite guard?"

"Malefor's guard? Last I heard they all died during the war. Besides if you have some sort of grudge to settle with them. Why don't you hunt them yourself?" Rattle replied.

"Because I don't know their locations, and I only know the physical appearance of two of them. I know what their leader looks like, and how the dragon that made my life a living hell every day looks like."

"Well it seems like you're at a lost. Regardless of your motives for coming here my duty is still to kill you. Anyone who enters this castle, and is not loyal to her majesty must die." He said, running towards Gen.

The poison dragon threw a punch at Gen, who blocked it using his wing. Rattle then swung his tail at Gen's head. The dragon used his claws to deflect the blade like tail. The poison dragon once again threw a punch at Gen, but this time the green scaled dragon caught the fist. Rattle threw his other fist at the dragon, but that too was caught by Gen. The two dragons began pushing against each other, demonstrating their power to each other. It was the first time that Rattle received a taste of his new opponent's strength. The light green dragon head-butted Gen, releasing himself from the dragon's grasps. He jumped away from the dragon.

"I see both of us are master class rank E. It has been a long time since I have gone up against someone on the same level as me." Rattle said.

"Is that so?" Gen said.

"Yes, and now let me show you what that means for you." He said, spitting on his claws and tail blade. "Poison Element: Dripping Poison Tips," he said as the dragon's claws and tail, began glowing a light green and yellow color.

_One hit from those, and I'll probably be in the same position as that dragon._ Gen thought to himself, upon remembering the state that Blair was in. "Ares do you think it would be a wise idea if I use my element?" The multi-eye colored dragon asked.

"You know he told us only to use it as a last resort. He also specifically told you and Sypher never to use your elements unless he said otherwise." Ares said.

"Yea, but by the time I'm done with this guy there will be no one else outside of our group that knows." He said.

"Fine do what you want, but end it as quickly as you possibly can." She said.

"Will do," he said, watching as Rattle made his way towards him. "Sand Element: Sand Breath," he said, releasing a flow of sand from his mouth onto the ground.

"What is that?" Rattle said, approaching Gen.

Gen saw that Rattle was nearing him, and shifted his head towards the poison dragon. A surge of sand pushed Rattle back towards where he had previously been. Gen continued releasing sand, letting it cover half of the room's floor. Once he was contempt on the amount of sand that he had summoned. Gen stopped it from flowing out of his mouth. The dragon looked around the room and smiled, he was happy with the amount of sand that there was.

"Alright now we can begin." He said, positioning himself in the middle of all the sand he had just brought to the room.

"What kind of element is that?" Rattle asked, dusting the sand off of him.

"An element that can only be acquired due to experimentation," he said, running his paws against the sand. "This is what happens when you try to change an earth dragon into a wind dragon. As you can see I only made it to the halfway point. The experiment was a failure, and as a result I was left with multi colored eyes and a new element. This transformed me from an earth dragon into a sand dragon." He said, squeezing the sand between his talons. "Now let me show you what a sand dragon can do, Sand Element: Free Flow Defense." He said, as the ground beneath him began moving in circles.

Rattle watched as the flowing sand came to a sudden stop. The poison dragon thought that it was a distraction, wasting no time he made his way back to Gen. He was once again within swiping distance of Gen. Rattle stretched out his claws, and made an attempt to swipe at the dragon. His poison drenched claws were quickly making their way towards him, but at the last second something blocked them from reaching him. Rattle looked on in amazement as the sand beneath Gen's paws stretched upwards to block the hit. Rattle quickly swung his tail blade at Gen, hoping that it would land. More sand stretched out from the ground to protect Gen. This time instead of blocking the hit the sand caught Rattle's tail. The dragon swiped his claws at the sand, cutting apart the sand that was holding his tail.

"It is pointless for you to continue." Gen said, sitting down on the sand beneath him. "The moment that I decided to use my element your odds of winning quickly diminished. The defense that this sand grants me is unlike any other. You will not be able to injure me as long as I have this ability."

"We will see about that." Rattle said, clawing at Gen desperately.

More sand began stretching from the ground to protect Gen. As much as Rattle clawed at the sand he could not get through it. His opponent was sitting on the ground paying him no attention. This greatly infuriated the dragon.

"Let's end this." Gen said, getting back up. "Sand Element," he said, lifting up his arm. The sand around him began enveloping the dragon in a massive surge. It pushed the dragon across the sky, and onto the wall at the far end of the room. The sand continued flowing towards Rattle crushing him against the wall. "Sand Pressure Crush," Gen said, pushing his arm through the air.

The sand mimicked this, and all at once pushed furiously against Rattle, crushing the dragon between the layers of sand and wall. The pressure from the sand broke the wall that the sand had been pushing against. The large quantity of sand flew towards the outside of the fortress, pushing Rattle's dead body out with it. Gen relaxed himself calming the sand down. The sand slowly fell back towards the ground.

"That ended sooner than I expected." Ares said.

"If he had been a different element user it probably would have lasted longer." Gen said, walking back towards Ares. "What do we do about her?" He asked, questioning about Blair.

"I have an idea." Ares said.

* * *

Glacia flew up towards the green scaled dragoness, and began assaulting her. The dragoness tried dodging Glacia's punches and kicks, but the cyan dragoness was just too fast for her. The green scaled dragoness was being hit by her attacks while gliding through the air. Glacia halted for a second and then somersaulted in the air, delivering a kick to her enemy's head. The green scaled dragoness was sent flying back towards the ground. Glacia watched as her opponent collided with the ground.

"It's not over," she said, standing back up.

The dragoness stomped her tail against the floor sending multiple rocks up towards Glacia. The dragoness dodged several of them, but some managed to hit her. She felt weight being added to her. She looked at her body, and saw that several of the rocks had begun covering her scales. Glacia felt that her wings were now also covered in the earthy substance. The dragoness began falling helplessly towards the ground. Glacia hit the ground hard cracking it on impact.

"Now that you can't move you are at my mercy." She said, walking towards the fallen dragoness.

"I don't think so." Glacia said, blowing ice on the areas of her body covered in stone. It slowly began cracking, breaking off of the ice dragon. Glacia was once again able to move freely. "Those types of attacks won't work on me."

"Alright then how about this," The green scaled dragoness said, stomping her paws on the ground. Large individual stone formations began stretching out from the ground, moving towards Glacia.

"I wonder how effective they will be." She said, breathing ice on her right paw's claw. "Ice Element: Ice Sculpture Body Enhancements," She said, flying down towards multiple stone formations.

Upon reaching the stone formations, Glacia began moving rapidly around them. A large stone formation protruding multiple spikes was about to slam into her. Glacia spun around mid-flight avoiding several of the spikes from hitting her. She dug her ice claws into the formation, flying across it. Ice slowly began to form across it. Glacia removed her claws from the stone formation, and continued to head down towards her opponent. The stone formation that she had let go off was unable to move, due to the ice large quantity of ice that it was now in cased in. Glacia saw that two large stone formations were approaching her from opposite directions. They were determined to crush the ice dragoness between their flat surfaces. Glacia saw this and aimed her ice claws at one of the formations. The ice surrounding her three claws detached shooting out of her talons towards the large earth formation, approaching her from the right. The three ice objects found their mark, piercing into the stone substance. The objects exploded spreading ice throughout the stone object. The ice that was spreading along the object began slowing down, and eventually brought it to a complete stop.

Glacia saw that she had stopped the one on her right, turning around she saw that the other one was about to hit her. She placed a paw on the incoming stone formation, and used the added momentum to leap onto it. She watched as the stone formation she was on smashed into the ice covered one. The stone formation broke the ice one, but as it continued traveling through the room something happened to it. The ice that had previously frozen the other stone formation was now freezing the one that Glacia had been riding on. She jumped off of the object as it came to a halt, blowing ice on her claws as she fell. She landed on the deformed ground that her opponent had created.

The ice dragoness began running towards her opponent. Who was surprised that she had survived everything that had been thrown at her. Glacia was now within an arm's length of the green scaled dragoness. She brought her ice covered claws forward, attempting to pierce her with them. Out of fear for her life the dragoness created a stone wall in front of her, protecting her from Glacia's attack. Glacia continued with her attack, piercing her claws into the stone wall. The green dragoness let out a sigh of relief upon, noticing that the claws were inches away from her chest.

"I guess you weren't as strong as you thought." She said.

"Just wait," Glacia said, blowing ice into her paw. The coldness from her breath slowly transferred onto her claws, increasing their size. The claws pierced into the green dragon's chest, and exited her back in a slow manner. Glacia's light blue ice claws were turning a red color from her opponent's blood. Blood quietly dripped from Glacia's claws onto the floor. The green dragoness slowly shivered as her body began to turn to ice. Glacia slowly removed her ice claws from her talons, and left them within her opponent's freezing body. She began walking away as her opponent's body was completely overtaken by the ice. The ice claws that Glacia had left within the dragoness began cracking. The claws suddenly exploded, breaking the green scaled dragoness into a thousand tiny ice crystals.

"I did what I had to do to please him." Glacia said, walking over towards Blaze.


	23. Ghosts

**Copyright: I do not own Spyro or anything Spyro related. It is all owned by Sierra Entertainment and Activision. I do own my original characters in the story.  
**

* * *

"It appears that most of my fighters have been defeated." The large dragoness angrily said. _Their deaths will not be in vain._

"I knew that they would overcome anything that you put in front of them." The sealed dragoness said.

"Yes, and it seems like there is only one option left for us." She said, giving her a sinister smile.

* * *

Seth slowly opened up his eyes, and saw that Cynder was holding him in her arms. His head began burning from remembering what he had done to his opponent. Then the realization of who he used to be hit the young dragon.

"What's wrong Seth?" Cynder asked, letting go of the dragon.

"I…I'm a monster, Cynder." Seth said, walking away from her. _I don't know if I can live with what I've done. Even now it's taking everything that I have to restrain myself from attacking her. I need to find a way to control this bloodlust, or get rid of it completely. I can't tell her what I am until I seek out help. The Guardians should know a way to help.  
_

* * *

"So are you going to kill me now?" Blaze asked, tugging on his stone incased paws.

"It depends," she said, walking around him. "We were told to kill anyone that posed a threat. That is why when we were walking through the first hallway we left your teammates alone."

"But if you attempt to stand in our way then we will have to do something drastic." Gen said, walking into the room with Ares behind him.

Blaze stared at the two dragons, and something instantly caught his attention. Gen was carrying an unconscious Blair on his back.

"Put her down!" Blaze yelled out.

"I take it that she is very important to you." Gen said, putting the dragoness down on the floor. "You should be thanking me."

"Why would I do that!? The last time I saw all of you it was clear that you wanted to kill us."

"I would calm down if I were you." Glacia said, positioning the sharp part of her tail under Blaze's chin. "If you agitate him enough he might just kill her."

"But I thought you guys said that you were ordered only to kill those that you perceived as a threat?" Blaze said.

"Yes, but that doesn't stop him from lying to Rai, and saying that the two of you were threats." She said, whispering to the red-blue scaled dragon.

Blaze began calming down, the dragoness was right. Nothing was stopping them from killing him, and more importantly Blair. They had saved her and for that he was grateful, but they probably had only done it because they could use Blair for bargaining.

"So what are you going to do with us now?" Blaze asked.

"Believe you me; I have no problem killing the two of you in this state." Gen said, rolling Blair over towards Blaze. The ground beneath them began to shake, and the walls began giving off a green glow. "But that will have to wait."

On the outside of the Fortress, the giant structure could be seen shaking violently. A large crack suddenly began growing on the far end of it. The crack began splitting the fortress in two. About two thirds of it remained intact, while the other part began moving through the dirt. The large open section of the moving fortress began ceiling itself up with tree branches, which began sprouting out of the dirt. Once it was all sealed up the entire fortress began moving up towards the sky. Large trees began carrying the remaining fortress towards an unannounced destination.

* * *

"What's happening?" Spyro asked, running across the hallway.

"It seems that something is happening to the fortress." Brox said.

Greg came to a halt, bringing the other two dragons to a halt as well. The earth dragon began feeling the vibrations of the building with his paws. The small vibrations traveling across the bottom of his paws let him know the condition that the building was in.

"It appears as if the fortress is moving, and also as if only a part of it is moving." Greg stated.

"What does that mean?" Brox asked.

"It means that part of the fortress was left behind so that this part could travel to some location."

"That must mean that everyone that we left behind to fight against the enemy most have been left behind as well." Spyro said.

"Yes, and if that is the case all of them must have been able to defeat their opponents. It is the only reason that I can come up with as to why the dragon in charge would be taking such a drastic measure."

"Alright then if everyone else is safe then we should continue forward." Spyro said, continuing to run across the hallway with Brox and Greg behind him.

The dragons only ran a couple of feet before they reached the end of the hallway. The three of them entered a large oval shaped room, and in it they saw three doors. The door in the center had the letter D inscribed on it. They felt that a large amount of energy was on the other side of it. The trio also noticed that the door had two magical veils over it. They immediately assumed that they would not be able to enter it, without first going through the two doors at its side. They examined the doors located at the sides of the main door, but felt something eerie from them. The two doors were just plain, and did not have any sort of letters on them. They did not feel any kind of energy from the doors. Unlike the powerful energy from the center door, the two side doors produced none at all.

"What do you suppose it means, Spyro?" Brox asked.

Before Spyro could answer his question a large burst of energy captured his attention. The three dragons turned around to face whatever was producing the energy.

"Do you feel that?" Brox asked.

"It seems that just two creatures are producing that kind of energy. It seems to be about the same amount of energy as the kind behind us." Greg said, taking a step back. "I assume that this mean that they are both D class as well."

"You mean that on top of the one that we have to face behind the center door we now have to worry about two more D class fighters?" Brox said.

"They may not be hostile, who knows they might be reinforcements."

"We should still keep our guards up just in case." Spyro said, taking a fighting stance. The other two dragons did the same following him to the center of the room.

They waited there for a couple of seconds, keeping their guard up for the entire time. In an instant a large gust of wind traveled past them. It took them a while to realize that the two creatures had easily made it past them. The three dragons slowly turned around to face them. They saw two dragons standing in front of them. The one on the left had grey scales, while his companion had light blue ones.

"Rai, Sypher what are you two doing here?" Spyro asked.

"We did not come to aid you purple dragon." Sypher said, turning around to face them. "We came here because it was of our interest."

"Spyro isn't that one of the dragons that attacked you and Cynder years ago?" Brox said, getting ready to pounce on Sypher.

"Yes, I am that dragon." Sypher responded. "But unlike last time he is not my enemy nor are you two. If you stay out of our way we will not harm you in any way."

"Why did the two of you come here then?" Spyro asked.

"It isn't just us, I brought everyone else." Rai said, turning around towards them. "When the fortress separated into two parts the rest of my team was left behind. I am not aware of your intentions, and you are not aware of mine. The two of us want what is behind the two side doors."

"By travelling through the fortress we figured out that some doors don't open unless someone passes through the side doors. Whatever is behind the center door is of no concern to us. It is obvious that whatever is behind the center door is your team's main objective." Sypher said, walking towards the right side door.

"Please do not take this as a kind gesture from us." Rai said, stepping in front of the left side door. "We are doing this because our main objective lies behind these two doors."

"What is behind those two doors that have you so interested?" Spyro asked.

"I'm sure that the two of you have felt it already. Why would the doors at the side of the main one fill you with more fear and discomfort, than the one in the center? Shouldn't the door in the center be the one to give off that kind of feeling?" Rai said, stepping through the tangible door.

"Sypher what did he mean by that?" Spyro asked.

"Why don't you follow me, and find out for yourself." He said, stepping through the door.

"What should we do now?" Brox asked, watching as the center door unlocked itself.

"The two of you should be the ones to save your leader's daughter." Spyro said, watching Rai's door disappear.

"But what if we need your help?" Greg asked.

"It will be two against one in there. Plus together the two of you are unstoppable. From what I've seen Greg is a better strategist than me, and Brox your physical attacks are stronger than mine. Believe me the two of you are a formidable team." Spyro said, stepping over towards the door Sypher had stepped through.

"Do you truly believe that we can do it?" Greg asked.

"Yes, I do. I mean you managed to safe my life once, and even though it might seem like I am abandoning you. I am not. I am simply giving someone else a chance to be the hero, because recently I don't believe that I should be called one." He said, stepping through the disappearing door.

The two brothers watched as the door disappeared before stepping through the center door. The room that they entered slowly became visible to them. They looked around the marble textured room, and saw that a large dragoness was sitting next to a small dragoness, who was trapped in a cage. They saw that the large dragoness had dark green scales and a dark brown underbelly. She had multiple horns sticking out of the back of her head. Her sharp crescent tail blade moved slowly against the ground. She looked intensely at them with dark red eyes. The smaller dragoness had a light green scales and a light brown underbelly. She had two horns that stuck out the sides of her head, and two that came out of the back of her head. The tip of her tail was in the shape of a leaf. She looked at her two visitors with hope filled bright red eyes.

"We are here to rescue you, Alyssa." Greg said, addressing the trapped dragoness.

"I knew that you guys would come for me." She said.

"What makes you think that I will let you take her so easily?" The large dragoness said, stepping forward.

"The two of us can take care of you. You have terrorized our city for long enough. Today we rescue our leader's daughter, and stop you from committing any further actions against our city." Brox said.

"If you dragons truly believe that you can defeat me and rescue her. Then by all means try, but you will find out that it will be impossible. You cannot defeat me, Calantha, because I am a step above you." She said, digging her claws into the marble floor.

"What is she doing?" Greg asked.

"Behold this is the element that I was given." She said, bringing forth plants from the ground. "This is the element that is above your Earth Element, this is the Plant Element."

* * *

Spyro looked around the room that he was in, and immediately he felt something pushing down on him. He looked around the room, and saw that it had a marble texture to it. Each step that he took further into the room, added weight onto the dragon.

"What is this? Why do I feel so heavy?" Spyro asked himself.

"So you decided to enter after all." Sypher said, approaching Spyro.

"Do you feel it?" he asked.

"Yes, it seems that whoever our opponent is can manipulate the weight of an object." The multi eye colored dragon said.

"How did you come to that conclusion?"

"If it was the entire room then the ceiling and floor would have long since collapsed on themselves." Sypher said.

"Very good observation," A large dragon said from the other side of the room.

Spyro looked across the room, and his eyes became wide open with surprise. The dragon staring at them from across the hallway was half the size of a fully grown dragon. He had copper colored scales, and amber colored eyes. The dragon in front of him was exactly as he remembered. All except for the earth symbol that was embedded at the top of his left forearm. Spyro immediately knew who the dragon in front of him was.

"Irus? But how can it be?" Spyro said.

"Irus? So this is one of the guys that trained Rai?" Sypher asked.

"Good to see you again, Spyro." He said, walking towards them.

"If you're here then does that mean that…"

"Yes, and he will soon come face to face with his former student. Are those all the questions that you have for me? If so then let us commence this battle." Irus said.

* * *

Rai walked into the room that he had chosen, and immediately felt a cold chill spread through his body. He realized that he could see his own breath, because of the coldness. It immediately dawned on him that he had only met one dragon that had the power to do this so freely.

"No, it can't be him." He said.

"And why exactly can it not be, Rai?" A voice said through the icy room.

The grey dragon looked across the room, and saw a dragon coming forward from the shadows. The dragon was half the size of an adult dragon, and was covered in dark blue scales. The dragon had sapphire eyes, and an arrow tipped tail. Rai also saw that the familiar dragon now had the symbol for ice tattooed onto the left side of his chest. Just like Slifer had the emblem for fire on his body, this dragon had the emblem for ice on his.

"No, it can't be you. I killed you with my own paws. I held your heart in my paw until it stopped beating. You should be dead, Cyrus." Rai said.

"This is the path that destiny has chosen for me, and I will follow it without question. My death was no accident it served a higher purpose, and that is why I agreed to the proposition that I was given almost three years ago." Cyrus said.

"What proposition?" Rai questioned.

"They told me that I would be able to serve the ruler of this world so I agreed."

"What ruler?" Rai asked

"The only thing that is absolute and unchangeable in this world. Destiny rules over all creatures. The one thing that is unavoidable that all creatures must face. It dominates over all beings, and I have been chosen to enforce it." He said, pointing to the mark on his chest. "I have become a Demi-god, thanks to it. I am the Demi-god of Ice: Cyrus."

* * *

**(A/N):If you don't remember who Cyrus and Irus are. They appeared in chapter 12 of Brotherhood.**


End file.
